Plan A to train chickens: I bought a large tub of meal worms. Thank goodness the lady in the pet store understood I wanted dried meal worms, not the LIVE ones the young man was going for!! At first the chickens were too nervous of any outstretched hand and a huge lumbering human coming at them. Sarah picked them up, one at a time, and tried poking the worms in their beaks. Sadly they have had their beaks cut as babies but happily there is a convenient space to poke the dried crispy little worm in. Given a minute or two they might have accidently eaten it. They were too freaked out about being held. When we let them outside to wander around the barnyard, they finally twigged on to the meal worms. Now they jump up to grab one out of my fingers. They will peck them out of the palm of my hand (now I am kinda glad for the pointy part of the beak missing). The girls know the sound of the meal worms when I rattle the container and they come running. The comic value of chickens running is worth everything right there. When I am ready to leave, I have to throw down a handful of worms and then run away before they start running after me.
Their first forays out of the barn was to scratch and hunt under the horse trailer. I guess they felt secure under cover. Now its quite normal to see them smooching through the horse paddocks or just cruising around inside the barn. They like checking out all the stalls, picking up leftover oats. Surprisingly none of the horses, even the new Arabs have the slightest problem with the chickens. Nor do the owners. The hens are a definitely a welcome addition to the family. Their antics have us all entertained. Sarah wonders why we didn't do it sooner...
The downside to having outdoor chickens in the barn is the copious amount of slimey shit that comes out of our new feathered friends wonderfully fluffy butts.
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