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ChickNic

It's all my fault!

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So, as I have been off work the last week I have been treating my girls a bit. I thought that they deserved it as they haven't had much garden time now the days are darker. I started by letting them out everyday for a few hours, and then got into the habit of making them corn porridge in the mornings.

 

Low and behold, now every morning they are bawking their lungs out as soon as it is light to be let out, even then they are really noisy until they've had their porridge! God knows what they'll be like when I'm back to work, hope the neighbours don't get too annoyed!

 

Any tips for quietening them down?!

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I had bought my girls some corn on the cob for their Christmas dinner but Christmas eve the little devils managed to knock over the little corn tub, which had been filled that morning, somehow managed to get the top off and stuffed themselves. They were enormous! They were sent to bed without supper and no Christmas dinner the next day. Everything now has to reside in the sealed bin as, if they see the pot, they start attacking it again.

 

Westie

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Do they bawk to be let out of the run to free range or to be let out of a closed eglu?

 

In the summer I was leaving the eglu door open 24 hours so I didn't have to get up to open the eglu door, and all was well for ages. Until a series of 4am wake up calls of them all bawking at the tops of their voices at cats. It got so noisy it had to stop. So my lot are confined to their eglu until 7.20am every day until I let them out and the midnight wake up calls ended.

 

Perhaps, if you go back to your old routine non-porridge routine they will un-learn their bad habits as quickly as they learnt them????

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Low and behold, now every morning they are bawking their lungs out as soon as it is light to be let out, even then they are really noisy until they've had their porridge! God knows what they'll be like when I'm back to work, hope the neighbours don't get too annoyed!

 

I have made the same mistake, and as I type Dot is going maddddd in the run bok bok bokking. Its driving me mad as she plays the game of who will give in first and of course its always me!!!!

 

I am worried about the neighbours and feel that I may have to move them away from the kitchen window (they are on the patio at the moment due to a very soggy garden) which would be such a shame as I love watching them when I am cooking :(

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I've also been off work since Christmas and our two chickens have been out of the run most days for 5 or 6 hrs. They have even had the run of the whole garden when I've been outside with them. They seem to have got used to the freedom only going back to the run for an occasional drink or to munch some pellets and neva going inside the Eglu. I'm not sure what they will think when I'm back at work.

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So, I have withdrawn the porridge, and started locking them in the Eglu until I'm ready to get up! They are slightly better, but if they want to come out of the eglu (when closed) and run (when they get bored) they still bawk as loud as they can. There is no fooling them. I put a black tarp over the eglu on Sunday and you could here them at 8am from INSIDE the eglu!

 

I'm and now in the process of varying getting up times and letting out of run times, so they don't expect a rountine. Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit, but they are smarter than the local fox!

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