Keeping Your Feathered Friends Entertained
Like any other animal, a chicken needs to be stimulated in order to remain happy. Without interesting things to keep their bodies and minds active, they can start to get bored. A bored chicken isn’t a happy chicken, and it can do all manner of things that can seriously impact your flock and its health.
Fights can begin to break out in your coop when your chickens are left unstimulated for long periods of time. These fights can result in unnecessary injuries and unpleasant feather picking in your flock. Egg eating is another common problem as your chickens can develop a taste for them when there’s little to do – an occurrence that’s bad for you and your birds. Chickens have even been known to go into a depression-like state where they are far more reserved and will often stare into space.
As you can see, keeping your chickens entertained is a pretty important deal. Not only can it affect your egg production, but it also seriously impacts the happiness of your entire flock. If you suspect your feathered friends are suffering from any of the incidents listed above, it might be time to add some eggcellent (sorry) new playthings and activities to ensure they’re boredom free.
How To Keep Your Chickens Entertained
Vegetable Treats
Chickens love snacking and they’re often prone to being quite peckish – literally! Simply cutting up vegetables or giving your chickens some leftover vegetable skins to peck at will keep them entertained for a short while. Alternatively, turn it into a game by hanging one from the ceiling of their coop, or simply give them a whole vegetable and watch them attack! Chickens aren’t fussy, so you can use potatoes, carrots, cabbages or any other common root vegetable.
Treat Dispensers
If chickens love a snack, a treat dispenser means they can help themselves whenever they want. For periods when you’re away from your flock, a treat dispenser is a great way of ensuring that they’ve got something to peck at.
Hang Up An Old CD or Plastic Bottles
Chickens can be simple creatures, which is great because it means that keeping them entertained needn’t be difficult or expensive! They have no use of the latest gadgets and gizmos and can get hours of fun out of a simple CD or plastic bottle hanging from the ceiling of their coop.
This will swing as your birds knock into it, catch the light in new and interesting ways, and even allow your chickens to catch a glimpse of themselves – all of which will add some excitement when inside the coop.
Make a Dust Bath
Dust Baths may look like a strange thing to do to you and me, but they’re an essential way of keeping your chickens both entertained and parasite free. A chicken’s feathers are unfortunately a perfect place for lice and mites to make their homes and it can cause a lot of illnesses and health issues if not monitored. Invest in a simple dust bath today to save on expensive vet bills. What’s more, dust baths are great places for our chickens to interact with each other and socialise – think of them as the health spas of the chicken world!
To make a dust bath you could simply dig a hole somewhere on your land or build a kind of raised bed and fill it with dirt or sand. You could even use an unused child’s paddling pool or sand pit if you really want, your chickens won’t mind! Just remember to replace the material every so often to keep it fresh.
Hay, Straw and Leaves
One of a chicken’s favourite pastimes is pecking away at something for hours on end. If you have the room in your outside space, straw or hay bale will give them something to scratch on and provide another interesting platform for them to hop onto. Even a simple pile of leaves or dirt will give them somewhere to scratch around in and look for bugs.
Things to Stand On
There are loads of reasons why chickens love hopping up onto things; it allows them to scope out the surrounding area, gives them somewhere to comfortably rest and gets them off the cold, wet ground during winter. By creating an interesting mixture of items they can perch on, your chickens will be far more stimulated and active.
Again, this doesn’t have to be anything special. Ladders, tree branches, old wooden boards and even logs will generally do the trick. You can even move things around every so often to make it feel like they have something new to discover and explore.
Why You Should Invest In A Chicken Run Today
Without a doubt, the best thing to ensure that your chickens don’t get bored is to get them outside. Your chickens love being out of the coop and there is nowhere that provides a more interesting and stimulating place to be than the great outdoors. Like all animals, chickens need somewhere they can stretch their legs and burn off energy.
Not only this, but nature provides its own selection of activities and entertainment that your chickens will love. This could be as simple as scratching around in some grass or leaves, eating some bugs or relaxing in a dust bath in the summer sun.
Investing in a chicken run – such as the ones on offer here – will give your feathered friends a safe place to interact with the outside world. There is no chicken run that is too big for your flock, but it’s certainly recommended to never go below one square metre per bird to ensure that they have the right amount of freedom.
By investing in a chicken run, you are allowing your chickens to enjoy the natural world and perform the natural activities that they should in order to remain happy and healthy.
Speak With Our Friendly Team Today
If you’re interested in our range of chicken runs to help keep your feathered friends active, speak to a member of our team today. Our phone lines are 0845 073 0253, or you can visit our contact page to submit an enquiry.
