What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

I don't know a lot about bird vision and thought I'd see if anyone knows anything about chickens' eyes on here.

 

What is their range of vision? Does the position of the eye give them nearly 360 degree vision, or do they have blind spots at the back and front?

 

And do they have a range of colour? I know dogs see primarily in blue and yellow (they must love IKEA bags!) and I saw a David Attenborough programme where budgies and hawks could see in a different spectrum t us, so dull colours to us looked nearly fluorescent to them! Do berries and reds glow out for chickens, for instance?

 

I'm curious!

 

Anna x

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I know nothing about chicken vision but I know I just have to open the (wall-mounted) kitchen cupboard where the mealworms are kept, and my girls all come hurtling towards the gate, no matter where they are in the garden .

[Snowy]

They certainly have very good vision - mine can spot a mealworm in a pile of woodchips!

[Old Speckled Hen]

A hen's field of view is about 300 degrees with a 30 degree overlap. That means that most of its vision is monocular. This is what you find in prey species. It enables it to see widely around while retaining a small amount of detailed fine vision.

 

The eyes don't move much in their sockets so chooks are able to swivel their heads much more than we can.

The eyes seem to have individual specialization: the left has spatial functions and the right is involved in recognition. I wonder if they look at you first with the right eye?

 

Chickens have different colour receptors as well as the ones we have and can separate light intensity in a different way from us. Their vision is also polarising ... they won't need sunglasses then!!!!

Red is important in providing social information .... the colour /intensity/size of a cock's comb being particularly important.

 

Well that's the science.

[Old Speckled Hen]

PS

Lots of research has been done on this.

Sadly with a view to "minimising Stress" in the battery hen!!!!

[A chickychickychick-ENN!!]

DA - I bow down to your post on my laptop. That was exactly what I was looking for. Thank you! How interesting!

 

Are there any colours they can't see? I note you share initials with David Attenborough. Which may explain your bird knowledge genius!

 

And thank you to the other posters. If ever I lose a mealworm, I'll know who to get to help me find it!

 

Anna x

[Old Speckled Hen]

Anna

 

DA just my initials; but David Attenborough was a childhood hero of mine and the main reason I went into science.

 

To add, hens can see a similar spectrum of colour to ours but are sensitive more to fluourescence and flicker.

 

They can't recognise familiar objects until they are within 30cm or so which may explain why they can be so nasty to underlings who, by the time they are recognised, are close enough to be a threat?

 

I know how a chicken works, but only after lurking here for months and then getting four lovely birds of my own am I just beginning to know how to keep them and to understand what gorgeous charming pets they are.

AND i've got everybody on this forum to thank for that.

 

I could watch them scratch around all day!!! what a crying shame that Hens ... and other living creatures .... are tortured so to provide us with cheap food.

 

Dani

[Egluntyne]

They don't see to well in the dark, lacking certain receptors.

 

That is why it is best to get them home before sundown.

[sandyhas3chucks]

cool DA... What abot smell , I mean if they dont recognise until close, then my 3 must be using sent as well as sight to recognise dif dogs as mine do. Their hearing is fenominal too, they herar or cars at ober 200ft away (with house inbetween) and the lid of the mealworm jar opening soon brings them in!!!

[Old Speckled Hen]

cool DA... What abot smell , I mean if they dont recognise until close, then my 3 must be using sent as well as sight to recognise dif dogs as mine do. Their hearing is fenominal too, they herar or cars at ober 200ft away (with house inbetween) and the lid of the mealworm jar opening soon brings them in!!!

 

Hens sense of smell is quite good, ranking half way down the bird world. They have been shown experimentally to be insensitive to capsaicin (chilli) but I don't know if that's true as there are posts describing filling blown eggs with Chilli to cure egg eating.

 

Interestingly cold food is said to be the most palatable with warm food generally being rejected but again that flies in the face of so many enjoying their warm porridge!!

 

Hens also have a separate "trigeminal system" based on one of the cranial nerves that is sensitive to noxious stimuli

 

Also they seem to find some substances that we can't smell quite revolting!

Perhaps somebody should look into this by way of a substitute for ukadex

 

As for hearing I quite agree especially where food is concerned.

How is it that they know when I open the back door( rather than my OH) and come running? I'm the one who looks after and feeds them.

[sandyhas3chucks]

brilliant... quite facinating

thank you, perhaps tey know it's you because they can smell you? no insult intended dogs do this...

[RubyReckless]

That was so interesting, Dani, thank you!

[iar fach goch]

I'm convinced one of my hens has a thing about yellow. The only time she ever went for me was when I was wearing yellow gloves and she also grabbed a stretchy little yellow man out of my son's hand, even though normally she wouldn't get so close. She seems to be very aggresive where yellow is concerned -or is it just me?

[Bohochic]

Very interesting post this one!

 

I've noticed orange seems to be a trigger colour - the girls go mad if we walk past them with the orange lawn mower or strimmer, resulting in lots of flapping and sqawking. I had thought that chickens can't see all colours, but I'm no expert.....

[Egluntyne]

Mine have a thing about yellow too....probably because I give them sweetcorn.

 

I daren't clean them out wearing yellow marigolds....I get pecked to death, and when I wear my red crocs, which have a couple of yellow jibbitz, they go for my feet!

[nikplus]

the girls go mad if we walk past them with the orange lawn mower or strimmer, resulting in lots of flapping and sqawking.

 

Is that in every instance, or just when it's in use? If the latter, could it not be more to do with the fact that lawn mowers and strimmers are noisy and big and kick up a lot of dust?

 

Mine head for the back of the run, under the Eglu Cube when the green lawnmower comes out, but they love it when you've finished cutting the grass and you throw in a couple of handfulls of the clippings. They scratch around in it and then devour the lot.

[iar fach goch]

so maybe I'm not crazy after all , strange thing is if I give my girls a corn on the cob to eat they won't eat it!

[jomaxsmith]

The thing about nestboxes needing to in the darkest part of the house - I've noticed that will peck at any eggs in the nestbox if I take the top of the Eglu off. Presumably she hasn't bothered with them before that because they were in shadow.

 

Jo

[carenb]

I have never learnt so much from one topic.. .thank you all !!!

 

I love this place !!!

 

Carenb

[clueless chick]

Same as with my chickens Had a pair of red crocks which were going to be used for the chicken run clean out but now I darent wear them as they all go for my feet and with great accuracy my toes are pecked between the rubber, maybe the toes look like fat worms

[Abbey Road Girl]

After there has been rain, I have been tracking a combination of chicken poo/garden dirt/aubiose/last of the summer shrubs/, etc, etc, into my kitchen.

 

Is there any way that I can keep the lovely feathered nosey parkers out?!

 

I have plans to plant a lavender hedge along the side of my small garden to discourage hen landscaping. But my hens ate all the supposedly poisonous ivy so are unlikely to leave mere lavender alone!

 

What actually deters hens? (I haven't the heart to shoo them away! Luckily, they only have hopped up the step and ventured a few steps into the kitchen--so far!)

[Bohochic]

the girls go mad if we walk past them with the orange lawn mower or strimmer, resulting in lots of flapping and sqawking.

 

Is that in every instance, or just when it's in use? If the latter, could it not be more to do with the fact that lawn mowers and strimmers are noisy and big and kick up a lot of dust?

 

The mower is switched off and we've even tried lifting it off the ground to walk past the run so that the noise it less! Still the same effect though.

 

Interestingly, there is an orange cube, red eglu and yellow eglu (not in production) - I wonder if the chooks can see these colours and whether they have the same effect?

[finger lickin good]

My chickens love anything yellow as they think it is sweetcorn. I was off to the recycle bin the other day with the crunchy nut cornfalck box and got chased by the little Velociraptors

( i think thats what they look like when they run really fast), surrounded and pecked on the foot until I put the box down and they realised it was nothing eggciting.

 

They were also keen on the yellow marigolds i use for cleaning out the eglu

[Forge Cottage]

I am greatly enlightened, thanks, especially to DA!

[Egluntyne]

My chickens love anything yellow as they think it is sweetcorn.........

.......They were also keen on the yellow marigolds i use for cleaning out the eglu

 

Ditto. I had to change to some stripey green ones. They are also partial to varnish on toenails....especially if it is red. You only make the mistake of going out to them in flip flops the once.