Single hen

[Mazzarina]

I put bark chippings down in my run a few weeks ago (after all that snow, which left the garden a swamp) and so far I'm very pleased with the results. The girls seem to enjoy scratching through it, throwing the layers' pellets around and hunting for them among the chippings, designing landscapes, etc.

But every few nights when I get back from work and shut their door, I find that they've flicked the chippings into the eglu and I can't shut the door properly. This leads to daft scenes as, torch in hand, I scramble round, prodding away at the bark with a metal pole (actually, the bit that keeps the run door shut) and trying to get it cleared from the door. All the while they quietly bok, bok, bok, threatening to get up again and investigate what's going on.

The next day I rake the chippings away from the door (using my ingenious patented chicken run rake, consisting of a hand cultivator tied to a bamboo pole with lots of string), and the next night.... yes, you've guessed it. The little monsters seem to take delight in doing this - they must think it's part of a fun game I've designed for them.

Does anyone have any ingenious solutions?

Bring on British Summer Time, and getting home from work when it's still light!

[C&T]

No solution to offer - mine do the same with their Hemcore.

 

I think they think it is funny...

[Mazzarina]

Not just me then - they do have a strange sense of humour, these chickens...

[cordelia]

mine do it too....I currenly have wood chips, and now they ahve taken to kicking all of that out of the run, and filling up the wood surround.....naughty girls

[The good lifers]

I got a fence post lying on the floor which doubles as a perch, put the chippings the other side of it and the chippings don't work their way up to the door, have had the same trouble and this seems to have worked!

; )