One morning my husband got an egg out for breakfast and when I came into the kitchen he informed me that one of the eggs would not crack open. I had to contain my laughter because he got one of my fake ceramic eggs. Now the fake eggs have a black marker stripe on them.
I have done that also. And one time I tested one of the eggs, not sure what I was thinking at the moment, to see if it was real or fake. It was real. Made a big mess.
That's very funny! I solved the issue with my chickens by buying white nest eggs. All my chickens are heritage breeds producing brown eggs so it's easy to tell real from fake.
I hung a bell by the coop and whenever I give them treats I ring the bell. Then once I let them free range when I ring the bell they come running! I also only feed them treats in the run so that way they know that's where the treats are.
I've found my tamest chickens have been the ones that have had some sort of health problem at a young age and needed special care, so needed frequent handling to be given medication. One of my latest batch had weak legs and started falling over and getting stuck unable to get back up. She's fine now, but always wants to be picked up, and comes up to my back door and let's me know she wants to come inside, I actually ended up getting a chicken diaper so that she could.
Same for me. I had 2 with pasty butt. I thought they'd hate me after all the time it took to clean their little bottoms, but those 2 think I hung the moon!
I've tried to make sure that the ones at the lowest of the pecking order eat well. I started checking their stomachs and noticed that they were not full, so I made sure that I discretely gave them extra food till their gut was full. Once I started doing that, they stayed healthy like the rest. It takes work and time though. They weren't getting enough food as the "leaders" above them got most of the food.
One tip for healthy eggs that look very cool is to feed carrots to your hens. I throw carrots into a processer grinds into little crumbles. The beta carotine in carrots will make the yolk the most gorgeous 24k gold color after a few days you will see a difference. My market sells horse carrots they are cheap And also the yolks will have some firmness and stay in a ball and not tend to runny. I have used carrots for eggs over the years and Everytime improvement in "plate appeal". have a nice day
We were keeping a few adolescent hens in a small, temporary coup separated from the "big Ladies" until they could be fully integrated. One day when they were all out free ranging together, I was cleaning the older hens' "Chicken Palace." The curious young hens walked in to see what was going on. Our bottom of the pecking order Easter Egger walked in and immediately flew onto the top roosting bar (we warned her not to get too comfortable up there), but the rest young hens could see this was far better than their little cottage on the wrong side of the tracks. From that day on, they never looked back. We were pretty surprised because none of them were trained, or even invited. The big ladies were aghast at the intrusion and made it known to the concierge that they did not approve. However, youth prevailed.
I had a flock of chicks that I had bought. I built a tiny pen for them to start in, before I moved them to the coop when they were bigger. I would go up and sit outside the tiny pen next to the fencing. They were running around. I brought a bag of store bought finely shredded (quite tiny sizes) cheddar cheese. I threw some in the pen and said, "Here, chick, chick, chick," in a high voice. The tiny chicks, at first, didn't pick it up until one grabbed it and the others chased it around because it had something in it's mouth (the cheese bit). At that point they didn't really eat it. In a couple of days, some ate it and discovered it was good. Every time I would give them the same call when I threw it in. Pretty soon, when they saw me, some would run over and every time I used the call, "Here Chick, chick, chick," in my high voice, consistently. After that for the rest of their lives, if I called like that, they would all run full speed to where I was to see what I had. This kept my chickens friendly .
My chicks will be 2 weeks on Monday. When I greet them in the morning and they are still under their heater plate I say "All the single ladies" they run out of their heater plate so fast to greet me. Also, have names for all of them. They let you hold and pet them. They are even starting to perch on our fingers. Excited about the journey. Love your videos. I watched a lot of your videos before I got the chicks.
I'm a brand new chicken owner and have never watched any videos until now (2 months after raising chicks)... I sort of just winged it. I died laughing when I found out you call your chickens and use the worms because I do the same thing! lol I yell "come on ladies" shake the bag of worms and they all follow me haha! I snuggled all of my babies as much as I could when they were born and I still hold and give them loves now that they're two months old! They get excited to see me and have one on one time with Mom. It's so cute and I'm so happy that they're so friendly!
I trained my goose to ride my horse with me behind the saddle. She was also my safety tie for my horse. I used to ride him to the town pool. Kids would love to ride off on my horse if not for my hissing goose setting on his back. Lol
We named our first rooster “Rocky” waiting to name his favorite girl “Adrian”! Rambo is so fitting and we just love your content !! You’ve been so helpful and motivating 😀 Thanks for your time !!!!!
Chickens seem to be very visual creatures. Wear the same shirt/coat in the beginning and they'll learn to trust you easier. I got my hens in winter and when I one day wore a coat new to them, they freaked out and ran away from me. X)
Absolutely. I mostly wear dark blue and the first time I wore a white t-shirt they ran away from me. One day I wore a male friend's big coat and that scared them even though they could see my face. Last week I brought some red rope into their run and they all panicked and took off scared of the red rope even though they are all very friendly chickens.
I tried that grub terror stuff and it was amazing. One of my chickens actually laid a golden egg because of it. I sold the egg, cleared my mortgage and bought a speed boat. Next I will end world poverty. Thank you so much.
This video is so helpful! Thank you for posting! This is our first time raising chickens, and you answered some questions we've been having lately but for which we hadn't found answers. Like getting them to go into the coop at night, getting them to warm up to us, getting them to come when called. Our girls seem to want to do their own thing! I really appreciate this instruction!
My friendliest hen is at the bottom of the pecking order. I have only had my girls for a month and they already let me pick them up. I try to handle them every day at the moment, because l know that at sometime l will need to treat health problems. My girls are 18months old, and come from an egg farm. They are going through their moult. The bossier girls are pecking at the other hens. I make up my own mixture of Aloe Vera cream, tea tree oil and black food colouring. It works. No red, no pecking.
Tried putting chicken wire over the box openings to stop a few from sleeping and pooping all night in the box.. Wasn't very successful, best practice I found was to drop the boxes down below the level of the roosts... they like being as high as possible so with the boxes lower they will naturally migrate to the higher perches.
"Here chick chick chick!" And my backyard ignites in chicken screams/yelling and they fly in from every direction, because my yard is sloped. It's hilarious! I started training them as babies every single time I have food or treats I always said "here chick chick chick" and it just stuck. I'm working on making a black soldier fly bin, the ramp will lead right down into a tray in the chicken run. Why don't you like mealworms? They are such a prolific source, practically maintenance free. I don't like breeding crickets that's for sure 🤢
I’ve never seen a chicken with that hairdo (4:55), omg I love it Side note, I went searching for organic chicken treats online and found Grub Terra. I decided to buy a bag even though it’s kind of expensive. But then I see this video which affirms I made the right choice Cheers, new sub here
We name our chickens and they respond to their respective names. It works well when there is less than 10. "Up" is to get in the coop. "Let's go" command to get out of the coop and to the big enclosure. Clap hands to get them to come to us. On their own, they will go in to roost at night.
Been watching your videos and a ton more.... never could have chickens before because I had a macaw and there are certain diseases poultry can transmit to parrots that are very bad for the parrot. But.... at roughly age 53 my beloved parrot finally passed. SO..... Chickens are in my plans. Gonna build my first coop very soon. AND use his indoor and outdoor cages as part of a chicken run.
Thank you 🙏 Our girls like black oil sunflower seeds. We use a golf ball in the nest. Make a maggot bucket for the black fly larvae. Flies go in and maggots come out. 😂
When I first read the title, I thought you meant 'training to fight' which I am pretty sure is illegal. They are a lot tougher then people may think; seen a Kestrel attack a hen... the beating that the barnyard rooster put on the raptor was incredible, and it flew off as soon as it could escape the fightin' cockerel. I almost felt bad for the falcon, you know it's rep is now destroyed amongst it's kind, but it did start the fight.
My chickens always put themselves to bed, but for some reason they are extremely flighty (i handled them a lot when they were chicks) so im hoping this video helps!
I just brought home my chicks from Rural King. I took your suggestions and I did order the playpen, great idea. I never ever had chickens, they are so cute. But all they want to do is sleep. The guy told me they are 10 days old. If you would like to see them, my RU-vid page is Polettirosa Homestead.
Thanks for the "ow, ow, ow" It hurts when they peck your hand and one always grabs my finger instead of the treat! My chicks definitely know the coop. Glad to hear my pets will get less flighty when they start laying.
If you listen to their alarm calls when they actually spot the predator themselves, you can emulate that screech pretty easily and they’ll panic run to the coop to take shelter. It’s not hard… just make the most awful and obnoxious screeching noise as loud as you can. Should work! 😉
I love this video. My first chicken Easter Eggers are not so freindly very flighty. Im raising Anconas now that crawl all over me at 3 weeks old . Thanks for the awesome videos I watch all of them
Thanks for the tips, unfortunately our run was built before our coop, gonna try and see if we can put our Brooder box in our coop for a better transition. And I’ll have to remind my kiddos to only use the Grubb Terra for recall.
Thanks for all your great tips. Grubterra is great. Just finished the coop 3 days ago and our girls are already trained to go in at night before the auto door closes. Tips on coop roosting would be helpful. Right now they just cuddle on the floor. So I'm going to try a low watt light on a timer. I think they just can't see the roosting bar. I know this bc when it was still dusk, but darker in coop, they couldn't even see the grubterra in my hand. Thanks again.
A light didn't work for my girls. We used a red head lamp so we could see and literally placed them on the roost. Did that for 2 nights in a row, then on the 3rd they started doing it without help. I hope the light works for you.
First time chicken keeper here. Ours are 6 weeks old and they still sleep cuddled up on the floor in the corner. They’ve tried the roosting bar, as in they can fly up to it and walk around or sit for short periods, but they still sleep on the floor. Is it important that they roost on the bar? How big and what shape is the bar supposed to be?
Mine are still cuddling on the floor also. I thought that chickens would roost naturally when they were big enough. ( Mine turned 7 weeks now) bad thing is the way my coop is designed( can't blame anyone but myself) I can't get to them to get them up on the bars. Maybe a timed light would help hmm... I'm also going to add a limb in the run for day roosting... Maybe that will spur nighttime
I don't have a call for the couple chickens I'm fostering. They just automatically get "glued" to the fence in anticipation whenever they see me in the yard with a certain small metal bucket. They know that a fresh batch of pulled weeds and worms is coming their way 😀
Thank you for the tips on hand training them. We've been picking up our tricks the wrong way apparently. Also appreciate your tips on the wet chick food. We had trouble getting them to eat from our hands but it makes sense that they weren't immediately excited - they'd never tried it! Great video and looking forward to our chicks growing up so we can try Grub Terra.
Thanks for the advice today. We've got a lone chick that needs to transition into the flock and we're struggling. Going to try allowing her into the coop during the day for a bit each day...we'll see. She may have to stay in our house for the rest of her life lol!
I'll probably raise both mealworms and BSF. Fortunately I know they will come to my feeder. They came under my quail pens. I had raised pens so the BSF came and ate at the quail poop diner. So I would think I could seed my BSF composter.
Question...When can I start feeding my chicks Black Soldier Fly Larva? My big girls love it but I want to start using it to train my babies who are 1 week old. I want to make sure it's safe before I try it. I'm feeding them scrambled egg now but think they may like the BSFL better. Need advice. Thank you
Always great videos. We just started our first homestead retired and moved to the country. We're starting off with 6 chick's they'll be our egg layers we chose three different bread's two each we've decided not to have a rooster just yet. This will be the first night in there coop. The Temp here is not going below 75 tonight. Great timing for your video..
Thank you for your content! I have 9 week old chicks and you have been my inspiration. I have black Australorp. they are so interesting and entertaining. I have a channel and have been recording our journey. So far so good.
Totally off topic but what do you do with the chickens when the weather is going to get really bad? I just got 6 Easter eggers today and the kids and I are so excited. Now I'm sitting here wondering what to do if we get a hurricane? Can you crate them until the worst has past?
We definitely do the treat bag to bring our girls in from free range but we always have a few stubborn ones that we have to end up retrieving ourselves. Which sometimes leads to a chicken dance. And makes us coo coo! Any tips on this?
How far do they go when free ranging? I let mine out on my small backyard all day and they been going good. But I am scare they will jump my fence someday
Depends on the chickens. I had to stop freeranging mine because a few (part game bird) were going further away each day until they were about to head over the fence near the road 100m from their coop. Other hens would never venture more than 20m from the coop. Some can fly up high onto and over fences.
Our ladies don’t like the Grubterra. Everyone else I have talked to say theirs love them. I guess our girls are picky 😂 They do go crazy for sunflower seeds and sprint over when they hear the bag!
Hey! Thank you for this video. I’ve got a few things I’m going to try now. I am new to chicken keeping and inherited 9 chickens with the purchase of my new home. The set up is beautiful already but being new to chickens I did not shut them in the coop at night and instead let them roost in parts of their run, which is well fortified but predators are sneaky b words. So of course one night I closed the gate from free ranging too late and we lost a chicken. :( now the raccoon knows they are there and I want them safe in the coop at night. This has been hard because it is clear that this was not the practice of the previous owners and they are very resistant to “cooping” (is that a word?) up at night. I feel like a crazy person chasing chickens and trying to heard them into the coop and I know I’m stressing them and myself out. I don’t want them hurt though and I want to build trust with them.
My hens come to the corner of the cage every time they hear my voice. Then they move over in front of the gate as I come into view. I have to throw a handful of food or treats to get them to move back so I can get into their yard. I have only had them for 5 1/2 weeks. When putting them up at night, most of the time all will go in for food. But there is one or two that will either want me to pet them or want one last run around the yard before going in. I personally think they are silly and being brats. Hugs and love from my little corner of Kentucky. P.S. I bought them as adult laying hens, that were from a flock of a semi-trailer full.
So someone in my tiny chick flock is a baby genius and I swear as soon as I replace their water and food, this anonymous chick immediately will scratch the food into the waterer. My question is, do you think putting the same food mush in my hand will still get them to like me or will they think “It’s cool you’re trying, but we’re good here”?
I can confirm chicken love soldier fly larva. Problem is I have one chicken that tries to rip the skin/callus off my hand when I feed them! She's beefy
Thank you for sharing your practical experience. But its very hard to train open range chicken. But chicken breeds have good learning and remember things for long time. Only we have to determined and focus on what we want from our chicken 😊😊😊
Can someone please help. I’ve only had my pullets for a week and a half and got them as 6 week olds. I’ve had to manually place them back in the coop and on the roost every night. They cuddle up in the corner of the run and I have to crawl on my hands and knees to get them which freaks them out even more. They jump right off the roost and still haven’t returned to the coop on their own despite a full almost 2 weeks of placing them there. Today I scared them so bad they were trying to hide under one another and I just felt so bad and couldn’t even get them in. I feel like I’m failing and they won’t take any treats from my hand. I give them black solids fly larvae but they won’t take it from me I have to throw it. Ugh. Idk how long it usually takes to tame these guys and what I’m doing wrong. I sit in the extended run with them daily giving treats and they still seem so scared of me
Well done. I've never had chickens but with all the crazy going on these days, I may end up doing it. I noticede a number of the methods you use for training birds are the same thing I've always used for training other animals. After you move keep your cats inside for a week so they learn where home is. 2 people get out of sight of each other with treats and take turns calling the dog. He comes and gets a treat. A certain call or sound EVERY TIME. Interesting I thought. Anyway, great video, very informative. Thank you, Jon
About a year ago I was gifted a adult flock that a few died over the year so I hatched 3 babies and bought 4 more. I made a HUGE mistake giving my babies live beetles! We've only lived on this property for 18 months so the beetle hatch was kind of new, so it was easy to pick up a dozen off the driveway everyday. They don't like meal worms, black fly larvae nor dried crickets! Because they are not quite big enough to free range, they get very excited with fresh grass! But who knows what's going to happen after they get to free range some. I call the older chicken by going "woooooooo chickens". It's pretty funny to watch them run and fly at the same time trying to get to me first. One of my hatched chickens doesn't like to look at me when I pick it up, so it closes its eye's while I pet it and talk to it. Yeah, "it" I'm not sure whether it's a rooster or not. It grew a tall comb real quick, so I started call him "Mr Rooster Jr". I'm sure you already know what the dad's name is...😂😂😂...then the comb never got any bigger, so I started calling her Miss Rooster...but now her neck feathers are starting to look like rooster neck feathers...and the tail feathers are starting to get pretty long! Mine are for eggs but I like my animals trained, so hand tame is important to me.
I have free range chickens. I had a specific call I used to call them in. However that no longer works. Same when I tried another call. Now I just make up any call I can imagine...I alternate, LOL. Sometimes it's, "Heeeerrree Piggy Piggy Piggy, Soooo Pig Sooooie" ! Or "Here Puppies...Here Puppy puppies" ! And here they come a running. 🤣😆 And anything else I can throw in there...And it works ROFL 🤣 But I do have a question though. I notice you have dogs. How do you keep them from eating chicken poop ? My dogs are always finding the chicken poop and eating it. I try to keep them from eating it. Sometimes I can catch them before they do.
GREAT vid, new sub. I didn’t notice any savings on dry vs wet (fermented) feed either, but the benefits of ‘fermented feed’ are proven- though not always easily discerned. My experience has been that the chicks are just so much more hardy & robust than chicks I previously raised in the “usual way”… and a HUGE plus… no more occurrences of “pasty vent”in the chicks offered fermented feed and grains. They especially love my “sourdough starter discards” which are quite sticky, so I always top dress “my discards” with feed or scraps to make it easier for them to eat.
Both of my hens are mean. Especially my Easteregger. She is vicious. She bites, she runs away, she’s just mean. My other hen is crazy. She cries for help all the time! She was my first chicken, and came from a family with kids who did a lot of grabbing. I’ve ordered 3-5 Buff Orpingtons that will be ready late February. I’m going to hand raise them. And the other two might become a pot of chicken and dumplings! They haven’t started laying yet, so I have hope!
Btw, shaking a tin coffee can with scratch & Grub Terra with cracked corn in it can be heard an acre away. I train my chicks this sound before ever releasing them out of the coop.
All new at this. Took great nieces and nephew to pick out chicks. Went for 6 came home with 10! I would like them to be friendly and come when called or tolerate us being in the space. Thank you for the tips. We bought a 10x10 shed for the coop. So that's going up now. Then do a nice big run for them. Needs to be covered though with wire and then shade. I'll take any advice and i like the idea of wetting the food. I'm going to try that. The kids are between 2- 8. Then I picked out 2 and my adult niece got one too.The 16 year old wanted to join in so she got one. Wish me luck!
I've never fed my chickens oyster shells...I give them back 1 dozen of their eggs, scrambled with all the shells finely crushed to crumbs. We haven't had a deformed or soft egg yet.
Loved this! Thank you so much! We are soon to be inheriting a mature flock of laying hens that haven’t been well socialized. Is there a way to train them to be a bit more friendly later in life.
Did you edit out any chickens jumping on you when you were filming? My son's chickens jumped and perched on my back and shoulders constantly when I was working in their coop. They took full advantage of me kneeling on the ground. I didn't expect it but loved their friendliness.
I'm only letting mine out when I'm actually here. We have hawks, 3 foxes, owls, and other things. My big concern is keeping them from wandering too far or off into the road.
