Sunday, September 23, 2012

The Chicken Strategy, Chickens are Smart!!

Do you remember the story of wrong way Whooten I told you about when I was a child? Basically it was about a duck that was born around our pond, I believe in the end he was left by his familyu and was the only little duck left. Well, the fellow had a bad sense of direction like most men. So he swam backwards but walked forward, yeah go figure right.

So, ok, now I have a new story to tell you happening here on the homestead... LOL... Pretty good one too.

So out of the old flock we have two hens, one is still laying and one continues to peck at the others eggs and breaks them open. I have supplemented their feed and have done everything I know to keep her from doing such a thing. But she continues to carry on her hate until the other day..

The hens were shouting their chicken alarms and so we checked in on them. When the door was opened, there she was in all her glory.......

So she has been pushing the lid off a few times, once we didn't put it back on because we never found any poo in there so figured we would keep it off.

She was safely removed from her troubled position being stuck in the top part of the feeder.... Then, to our amazement she was doing something pretty smart. She was protecting her eggs from the other hen that keeps breaking them open.



By laying her eggs down in the can, the other hen can't reach them to break them open. So, we decided to make a plan to test this theory to see if this was a self taught, survival of the species skill. Now a week later, she continues to lay eggs in there, but if filled up to much she will lay in the nesting box where the other hen continues to break them...... 

12 comments:

  1. I would like to win the Dutch oven so I can cook in my fireplace instead of on the stove.

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  2. Time to consider other plans for the egg eater...

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  3. This is very interesting as I am considering getting some chickens. Thank you for the information. I was raised on a farm but never heard of this before.

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  4. show me a picture of your nest boxes. there may be a simple way to solve the problem

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  5. Time for chicken soup for the egg pecker.

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  6. Why haven't you eaten the egg pecker yet?

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  7. It's amazing to see how creative and intelligent chickens really are. This shows that chicken does 'think outside of the box'. Thank you.

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  8. Why not just put a no peck peeper on the hen doing the offense? Also why did you let all those eggs stack up that long just to test a theory? Waste not want not I say. Surely over half of those eggs went bad? If you do not want to use a peeper than you can do one of 2 other options: 1) Cull her the crock pot is a great place for a hen like her or 2) sell her off. Once started they will NOT stop and feed quality will not stop it either. Bad habits like this one rarely stops. There are ceramic eggs too that can be placed in the nest and maybe if she pecks it enough times without any results she may stop. I know here that egg eaters go, they do not stay here. I can not afford to feed an egg eater.

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  9. Sounds like the one is begging for a nice soak in a hot tub, er, stock pot! ;)

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