Every morning, the hens in the coop stand on their perch looking expectantly out the window.
Every morning, I pick up one of the hens, carry her across the new chicken house and put her on the platform in front of the doorway of the new automatic chicken door.
If I’m in a hurry, I gently nudge her from behind, and she plops down to the ground.
If I’m not in a hurry, I wait for her to make her own decision and hope that this time she’ll learn. In fact, rather than put her on the platform, I set her on the stepping stool in front of the platform and wait and wait and wait while she looks around her, including up at the platform in front of her. The hope is that she will leap up onto the platform, then go outside by herself.
It’s been a month, and so far, these two old hens haven’t figured out how to go out the new chicken doorway by themselves. Thank goodness, at least they have figured out how to go back in through the chicken doorway at night.
Previously, we had the kind of chicken coop that is raised up a few feet off the ground. It used a double-hung window as a door for them to go in and out of, but I had to open that window-door in the morning and close it at night.
Since their previous window-door was a few feet off the ground, on the outside we had put a large, overturned flowerpot in front of it for them to leap up onto and go inside. That same overturned flowerpot is there outside as a platform for them to get into the new chicken doorway which is at the same height as the old one, which presumably is why they can figure it out.
We built them a new coop tall enough for us to walk into. That window which used to serve as a chicken door now is just a window, with another matching window across from it in the back wall. There’s a regular people-sized door into the coop, and to the right of it there’s also a little solar-powered chicken-sized door that opens and closes with the rising and setting of the sun. We were very excited to get that door. First, it’s pretty cool; and second, what a relief to have that door open and close when it should, whether or not we’re at home to do it – or, frankly, if it’s nasty weather and we just don’t want to go out in the heavy rain or freezing cold to do it.
You can’t teach old dogs new tricks, and that apparently goes for chickens too.
Yesterday for the first time two of the seven 8-week-old pullets went out the automatic chicken door by themselves and were exploring the great outdoors. It won’t be long before the other youngsters do it themselves as well.
Will the two old ladies watch and learn? Or will they still be stumped, forever waiting for one of us to go to the coop and move them outside manually?
I have read in various sources that the label “free range” on eggs that are sold commercially doesn’t mean what consumers hope it means.
In the category “free range,” hens are kept in a large area instead of in tiny individual cages. However, there are so many birds densely kept in a building in that large area that they are stressed out and peck each other, so – in many cases at least – their beaks are clipped off to prevent pecking.
Their so-called access to the outdoors may be provided by mere holes in the perimeter. In other cases, the access doors to the outside are not ever even opened until the pullets reach a certain age. By then, they are so used to being inside the building that they do not figure out how to go out the access doors to the outside and don’t go.
Seeing how my hens are behaving now – and they are used to spending all their days outdoors totally free, just not used to going through a new doorway to do it – I can believe that.
It’s been a month, and the human teachers so far have not succeeded in teaching the old hens how to use the new doorway.
Our only hope now is that the old hens will watch and learn from the young pullets.
Sometimes, peer pressure does have its advantages.
“Now what?” After four weeks of gentle instruction, the hens still haven’t figured out how to go out through their new doorway.
