You’ve, no doubt, heard about the Arab Spring. We’re currently experiencing something similar – except it’s in the chicken house.
When we took over the current house the chickens (yes we’ve now added chickens to our resume) were laying 4 eggs a day. This was fantastic and more than we were able to use. So we were in the wonderful position of being able to give eggs away. While we were very happy with the situation it did occur to me that since we had 10 chickens, 4 eggs was either an indication of some seriously underperforming birds or there was a roster system of which I had not yet become aware ie they were taking turns to produce. At first, I opted for the latter view. However, some recent events have been leading me to reconsider my position.
It started with a refusal to return to the coop after the afternoon’s designated free time. Each afternoon we would let them out and let them run around freely for a few hours. During this time we would keep the dogs locked up. At first I would come back to the coop to find all the chickens inside on their own roosts – there really is a “pecking order” but I won’t go into that now.
Then one day things started to change. It started with one chicken still outside when it came time to return to the “security” of the coop. I attempted to “herd” it into the henhouse but as I went around one side, trying to move it to the doorway at the front, it headed around the other side. So we had a Mexican standoff with me on one side of the henhouse and the chicken on the other. Meanwhile, a couple more chickens came out and so I found myself needing to go in three directions at once – clearly not a viable position. Having Sancho running around them added an “interesting” element to the chaos. Now Sancho isn’t a big dog (he’s a cute 10kg white fluffy) but to a chicken he does appear to be rather threatening. The fact that he has a chicken wing each morning for breakfast may also have added to his perceived danger.
Many years ago I heard about a management course in which trainees had to get a chicken to do a particular thing. Clearly, the only way to achieve the course objective was to change your own behaviour in order to achieve the desired change in your staff’s behaviour. I suddenly found myself wishing I’d attended that course. However, I found the principle a sound one and so looked at how I could change what I was doing to get them into the chicken coop. This finally worked and I had all the chickens present and accounted for – I really didn’t want to have to tell the home owners I’d managed to reduce their chicken stock.
Next we started to notice a decline in the number of eggs. From 4 per day it was dropping to 2 per day. This was clearly an unacceptable decline in them meeting their KPIs. To address this we tried feeding them more interesting things – scratch mix and kitchen vegetable offcuts. Things didn’t improve. In fact they got worse.
We now find we need to check the nests regularly because they’ve started destroying the few eggs they do lay. On a number of occasions we’ve found only broken egg shells instead of the intact version for which we were very grateful. Also, when it’s been time to “go to bed” a group have been regularly wandering around the enclosed vegetable garden. Somehow they’re getting in but can’t get out again.
I’m finding this “rebellious” behaviour quite unacceptable and if they continue in this manner I’m afraid I shall be forced to contemplate more dramatic action. If you come to our place for dinner and are offered roast chicken it may be best not to ask where it came from.