Weird Stuff Nobody Tells You About Raising Chickens
You Don’t Need a Rooster to Get Eggs
You don’t need a rooster for egg production. You probably don’t even want one. They can be mean. As in, come after your kids with their spurs, scare the living daylights out of them, kind of mean. Hens lay eggs just fine with no rooster.
Photo by Arib Neko on UnsplashMost stores sell chicks as pullets, which means they’ve been sexed, and they should all be females. Straight run means that the chicks haven’t been sexed and are a mixture of male and female. Meat chickens are generally sold as straight run. Most egg chickens are sold as pullets.
They Put Themselves Back in the Coop at Night
This is what allows me to pasture raise my chickens the way I do. They put themselves to bed at night. I wish kids were that easy to get into bed! When the sun starts going down, the whole flocks starts moving indoors. Then when my light sensor detects that it is no longer daylight, the door closes behind them. It works out perfect because that’s exactly when the predators start coming out.
They’re Nearly Paralyzed at Night
Side note: If you have a brood light in the coop, they do not do this.
They Like to Roost up High in the Coop
Photo by Peter Schad on UnsplashChickens like to sleep up high. The higher the better. I had one chicken that used to try to roost on top of the coop. She did not live a long life. Nighttime predators have an excellent sense of smell, and they’re good climbers. I think it was around that time that I added boards to the rafters of the coop. Now they perch up there, and they seem pretty content.
In addition, there seems to be a certain height that they like to lay eggs as well. They would much rather lay eggs just above waist level or higher instead of laying them down low. They LOVE my husband’s work benches. That is evidently their ideal height because they will choose his work benches 10:1 over laying in their nesting boxes or even in the soft hay in the barn. Not to say that they won’t lay eggs down low. They just seem to have a preference for slightly higher spots.
They Prefer to Lay Eggs Where Another Chicken Already Laid Their Eggs
This is where those fake eggs you see in the farm store come in. They really do work. If you put a couple fake eggs in a nest box, chances are the chickens will start laying there. Sometimes They Eat Their Own Eggs
Chickens are little cannibals sometimes. It’s probably why dinosaurs went extinct. I could understand them eating their own eggs if they were really hungry, but we had an Ameraucana one time that just loved to crack and eat all the eggs she could find. She preferred them. Fake eggs work well to fix that too. It hurts their beaks to peck the ceramic eggs, so they stop fairly quickly.
They Eat Ticks
They eat all the ticks. My dogs haven’t had ticks in years. We don’t even treat the farm dogs anymore. This is really nice for me as a beekeeper too. I don’t have to check for ticks when I go out to my bee yard.
They Eat Weird Stuff Too
Chickens sometimes eat weird stuff. Like the time they ate my husband’s cigarette butts. Tobacco is a plant, right? They aren’t smoking it, so I guess it’s ok??? Let me assure you, this is not typical, and I’m not sure to this day why they ate them. They have many other food options. But it happened.
Photo by Andrea Lightfoot on UnsplashThey also really like cat food. Better than their chicken feed even. And the cats let them eat it too! I feed the cats at night now.
One time the chickens caught and ate a mouse. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. We had to look it up, but, apparently, it happens. So weird. I didn’t even know they ate meat!
They Like Dust Baths
If you till up a section of ground in your garden and it’s even a little bit dry, you’ll have a pile of chickens rubbing themselves in it. Sitting in it. Fluffing their feathers in it. They absolutely love it!
They Need Their Space
If you don’t give them enough space, they will end up with bald spots, or even completely featherless in extreme circumstances.
Photo by Daniel Salgado on UnsplashSometimes all of them have bald spots. Sometimes one of them is fine and the rest are bald…because that’s the one who’s plucking all the feathers from the others. Culling her may fix the problem, but other chickens may start exhibiting the same behavior if you don’t fix the real issue. Chickens do not like to be “cooped up.” They will roost together at night, but during the day, they prefer a little space. Or a lot of space.
Too many chickens sharing the same space does not make for happy little chickies.
They Are Not Scared of Snakes
Actual snake from our porch!This is contrary to a lot of information on the internet. Chickens are not scared of snakes, and you generally do not have to keep them out of your coop, at least here in Indiana. They’ll take care of it. I’ve personally seen my flock chase an enormous black snake out of our yard before. It didn’t stand a chance.
Side note: I would protect baby chicks from snakes though. That could be a problem for them when they’re little.
They Bite
Photo by Timothy McAuliffe on UnsplashBroody chickens are nippers. A broody chicken is one that doesn’t want to leave her eggs. She’ll sit on them all day long, even unfertilized eggs. Sometimes, even fake eggs. They can’t tell the difference. If you have a broody chicken, she will guard the eggs, and she will fight you when you try to get them out from under her. Remember, she’d eat you if she was bigger than you. Most of the time it doesn’t hurt to get a little “hen pecked,” but we had one that had good aim, and she could leave a mark. Wear gloves if you need to.
I prefer non-broody breeds. I would only keep a broody chicken if I wanted her to hatch some fertilized eggs for me. I want my chickens to spend their day foraging, not sitting on eggs.
