Yes, sometimes chickens bury and hide their eggs. If you’re reading this, you most likely have found some eggs hidden and buried somewhere at some point in your chicken-tending experience. Chickens are creatures of habit, but it’s entirely normal for them to lay eggs in other places.

Ways to get your hens laying in their nesting box

1. Clean the nesting area out at least once a week. Whether an egg will be hatched or eaten, in both cases cleanliness of the nesting box is very important.
2. Find the secret nest.
3. ‘Decoy eggs’
4. Collect the eggs regularly.
5. Break the habit.

If you keep chickens, you naturally would prefer that your laying hens deposit their eggs in the nest boxes you’ve provided for that purpose—not outside on the ground, in the corners, hidden in tall grass, in hay bales, or any of the hundreds of other places that seem to appeal to them.

Surprisingly, yes – chicken really do seem to recognise their owners. In fact, research has shown that chickens are capable of recognising up to 100 human faces, so it won’t take them long to learn who their owner is.

While they may not seem like the most obviously affectionate of animals, most backyard chickens grow very accustomed to their owners, often delighting in being picked up, petted and talked to in a soft and gentle manner.

between 16 and 24 weeks

Signs of Heat Stress in Chickens

1. Labored breathing and panting.
2. Pale combs/wattles.
3. Lifting wings away from body.
4. Lethargy.
5. Diarrhea.
6. Seizures/convulsions.

To reduce stress, give them a continual supply of clean, fresh water, and clean their watering equipment regularly. For more information, see our article on the importance of water for chickens.

Lavender has the marvellous ability to calm your chickens! It’s a brilliant as a relaxant for your feathered friends – and for you as well! So if your hens are a bit highly strung, place some lavender up into their nesting boxes – it’ll help calm their senses and give them a bit of DIY aromatherapy.

Best Bets for The Friendliest Chicken Breeds

• 1) Silkies.
• 2) Speckled Sussex.
• 4) Rhode Island Red.
• 5) Cochin.
• 6) Wyandotte.
• 7) Australorp.
• 8) Easter Eggers.
• 9) Faverolles.

Chickens use pecking and aggressiveness to establish their social hierarchy. Hens can also adopt unpleasant behaviors. Sometimes, in a roosterless flock, a hen might adopt a rooster’s protective role, becoming aggressive to people though docile with the other hens.

Another flock boredom-buster is a block for hens to peck, like the Purina® Flock Block™. You can simply place this block in the coop for hens to peck. The block can be a fun experience for hens and prevent flock boredom when they are spending more time in the coop.

Why Roosters Peck Hens While it may be concerning to you, the rooster is simply doing his job—pecking is courting behavior. When a rooster pecks a hen in that way, if she is ready to mate, she will squat down to be mounted. Eventually, the rooster may come to have a favorite hen or two in the flock.

Because chickens are attracted to blood, cannibalism outbreaks can be initiated by the injury of one bird and subsequent pecking of the injury by a flock or cage mate. Fowl will peck at injured, impaired, or dead birds in their pens as a result of the social order and their natural curiosity.

Pecking at each other is normal chicken behavior. When chickens draw blood, they go a little berserk. For some reason blood sends everyone into a frenzy and they attack the wounded animal. The more blood there is, the more they attack.

Sometimes chickens will peck at a dead comrade, mimicking damage done by a predator. Feathers scattered about and torn screens reveal forced entry from a raccoon or other felon.

Hi, yes birds do play dead. Our cremations are done at dusk, after the other girls have gone to bed. This may be an attempt to play dead, discouraging predators that prefer live prey. To know about causes of sudden death in chickens, you will have to read this full amazing article.

The most basic way to communicate with your flock is by chatting with them. Whether you chat with them while visiting the coop each day or while they’re out and about free ranging, engaging in lively clucky conversations, is quite an egg-straordinary experience. Chickens do have a LOT to say!

It’ll be pretty easy to tell whether a baby chicken has splayed legs – their legs are stretched out on either side of their body instead of underneath like normal. What it’s caused by: an overcrowded brooder. incorrect temperatures during incubation, warping development.

And it can leave a mark if they get a hold of you just right. However, generally speaking, when a chicken bites you, it feels more like a good pinch than say a dog bite that tears. The intensity of the ‘pinch’ will vary from bird to bird and from breed to breed. This isn’t to say that a chicken’s bite can’t hurt you.

How to Get Your Chickens to Like You

1. Blame the breed. The breed of chicken does make a difference.
2. Announce ‘dinner is served! ‘
3. Invest in quality time. One of the best things that you can do is to simply spend time with your flock.
4. For every action…
5. Look nice, bring treats.
6. The hand that feeds them.

twice a day

Lots of water. Feed your chickens at regular times each day. Chickens need to eat all day, so always have good quality feed in their pens. A good format to follow is to top their feed up in the mornings and let them out for 30-60 mins in the late afternoon.