Flighty hens

The hens have been here for a little over six weeks. Long before now they should have mastered the fact that when they stand on the treadle of their feeder, the lid opens and they access the food in the hopper.

As the first extra explains, there is a very easy three-step training regime. With all my previous flocks of hens it has worked perfectly.

The advantages of this method are that other animals don’t share the henfood (rats, mice, sparrows, starlings etc) and it remains dry in the rain.

For some reason these hens are taking a very long time to master the treadle. For several weeks if they heard the clang of the metal feeder, or saw the lid drop, they’d race away flapping and squawking.

In order to make sure they’re getting food, the lid has been wide open until now, with the treadle on the ground. And as a result I’ve been feeding the entire starling population of North Otago. At ridiculous cost. Yesterday I put netting across the whole of the open hen run, to keep the pesky birds out and to give my girls longer to get used to the feeder.

This coincided with the hens being brave enough to hang around next to the feeder as I’ve manipulated the treadle. So I’ve progressed to step 2 of the process. They haven’t quite dared to tread on it themselves, but they do stretch over and around it to access their food.

Slowly slowly, they’ll get there… And one day I’ll be able to take the huge net away again.

On the plus side the chooks are super-friendly and are very keen on my shoes when I visit them, although it’s quite difficult to walk around the hen run without standing on them.