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Hi, I'm a newbie and just after a little advice please.
I have 8 chickens - 4 ex batts, 2 Silverline and 2 Bluebells. One of my ex batts is a nightmare chicken.
They are all allowed the run of the garden all day, well from about 7am to 7pm when they take themselves off to bed. When they want to lay, they go back into their houses, sit in the nesting boxes and off they go. Except for one ex batt, Houdini.
She spends a good 6 hours a day trying to escape the garden. I realised on Tuesday that she is doing it so she can get out the front to lay. Between the wall/fence of our house and next door (there is a hedge between us, our fence sides onto his garage wall) I found 11 eggs, so she has obviously been laying there for a while. I hadn't realised before that she was doing it because I have only just reclipped her wings and she was obviously jumping/flying back over the fence once she'd laid. Since she was clipped, she still manages to get over, but comes to the front door and squawks to be let back in.
Over the last couple of days, I have tried letting everyone but her out, but I swear she just does laps of her house and run and almost crosses her legs in an effort not to lay. And as soon as I do let her out, she runs so quickly up the garden, hops the fence.. and well, I've explained that bit.
How can I stop her doing this? She just doesn't listen and she is driving me mad. And you can be sure that whenever a neighbour knocks on the door to tell me I have an escaped chicken, it's her. She doesn't go near the road or anything, just heads to various people's front gardens and squawks at their doors to be let in. I think she thinks she's human.
The others are all good hens and get praise, but I seem to spend half my life telling her off.. I even introduced her to the oven this morning to tell her what would happen to her, but it makes no difference.
(She also drives me mad by coming in through the cat flap and settling herself in the cat litter tray in the conservatory and eating the cat's food)
Is there anything I can do? Or do I just have a very naughty chicken?
Thanks!
I have 8 chickens - 4 ex batts, 2 Silverline and 2 Bluebells. One of my ex batts is a nightmare chicken.
They are all allowed the run of the garden all day, well from about 7am to 7pm when they take themselves off to bed. When they want to lay, they go back into their houses, sit in the nesting boxes and off they go. Except for one ex batt, Houdini.
She spends a good 6 hours a day trying to escape the garden. I realised on Tuesday that she is doing it so she can get out the front to lay. Between the wall/fence of our house and next door (there is a hedge between us, our fence sides onto his garage wall) I found 11 eggs, so she has obviously been laying there for a while. I hadn't realised before that she was doing it because I have only just reclipped her wings and she was obviously jumping/flying back over the fence once she'd laid. Since she was clipped, she still manages to get over, but comes to the front door and squawks to be let back in.
Over the last couple of days, I have tried letting everyone but her out, but I swear she just does laps of her house and run and almost crosses her legs in an effort not to lay. And as soon as I do let her out, she runs so quickly up the garden, hops the fence.. and well, I've explained that bit.
How can I stop her doing this? She just doesn't listen and she is driving me mad. And you can be sure that whenever a neighbour knocks on the door to tell me I have an escaped chicken, it's her. She doesn't go near the road or anything, just heads to various people's front gardens and squawks at their doors to be let in. I think she thinks she's human.
The others are all good hens and get praise, but I seem to spend half my life telling her off.. I even introduced her to the oven this morning to tell her what would happen to her, but it makes no difference.
(She also drives me mad by coming in through the cat flap and settling herself in the cat litter tray in the conservatory and eating the cat's food)
Is there anything I can do? Or do I just have a very naughty chicken?
Thanks!
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