Chickens are simple creatures, and it’s pretty easy to figure out what motivates them, makes them happy, or comes second nature to them. Here’s my ongoing compilation:
- dandelion greens
- fresh bedding
- chest bumping eachother
- pecking at freckles
- chasing a laser pointer dot
- ham
- broccoli leaves
- eating spiders
- strawberries
- perching on my back or shoulder
- dust baths
- trying to fly
- scratching
- assisted preening (cleaning dirt/debris of eachothers backs)
- attacking shed feathers
- pecking at the frayed ends of my jeans
- snatching tissue paper out of my hands
- ripping worms in half (or in thirds)
- cooked white rice
- blackberries
- squawking at birds outside their run
- staring at their reflection in my sunglasses
- cooked black beans
- fighting over beetles
- eating figs (so spoiled!)
- attacking birds that land in the yard
- MEALWORMS! (all caps to emphasize importance)
- pooping on the stone step just inside their run
- preening at dusk
- freaking out squirrels
- eating lambs quarters (plant, not the animal)
- running in circles when I let them roam the backyard
- shredded cheese
- teeny tiny chunks of cut up pear
- snatching moths out of the air
I’m sure there will be plenty more additions to the list over the years as I find new and novel things to introduce to them.
Ferndale Chickens 
Hey there, just a friendly shout-out from the neighbor across the street! I’m loving the website and the community that you’ve helped build around it. Good luck keeping the hens cool this summer, I’m loving your misting fan idea.
thanks Robert!! Glad to have awesome neighbors that don’t think I’m a few cards short of a deck to have a blog dedicated to 3 silly hens. You’ll have to stop over for sangria and chicken watching sometime soon. 🙂
Awesome, great post! From Tasmania.
This is hilarious! thanks for the laugh, gotta love their antics
Watermelon! You gotta try watermelon!
when we first started moving our [then] few weeks old chicks out of the inside brooder to an outside chicken truck, i would place them over a nice patch of dandelion, hoping to get them to start cleaning up the weeds from my yard, saving me a lot of work…they would have nothing to do with the stuff. hmmmph.
now, at over two months old, they can’t seem to get enough of the stuff….we now have them in their new home chicken coop with a [hopefully] roomy enough 16’X16′ run. they have totally decimated the greenery inside that pen, including all the dandelion…and now i find myself out scouring the yard for the plant to feed to them….besides corn on the cob, their favorite treat.
New follower…..but have my own fancy for chickens and have a flock of 7 hens and one rooster!! I love to watch and interact with my chickens, they all have distinct personalities and never boring. This summer heat however has affected them a lot though and put a damper on their curiousity. Today the heat index was 107, I’m so looking forward to cooler weather. I was searching for ways to cool down my flock and found some of your ideas thought provoking. I’ve decided to purchase a childs’ swimming pool for $6 at the dollar store and see if they will play in a couple inches of water! I’ll let you know if how it works out, thanks for giving me a place to share my thoughts about my flock.
Did it work out for you? Always like hearing what works for everyone!
Ms. Laura, so sorry to have to say the small pool with a few inches of water didn’t seem to get my chickens interest. But the pool did come in handy and served a good purpose. I poured out the water and put a bag of top soil and a bag or sand into it and the hens love taking their dusk baths there. Still hot here though, and still lookin forward to cooler evenings in a few weeks
Cooler evening on their way!! Fall is my favorite time for the chickens, it seems like ideal weather then.
What she said…….I can’t wait for cooler afternoons and evening, just hope all my ladies make it….and Gerald my rooster too! He is a site to behold and watches out for my ladies, but even he is no match for this hot weather. Be glad when I can give them some scratch to enjoy in the afternoon and their tongues are not hanging out with their wings spread!
My birds are not in direct sun, their coop and runs are under trees with plenty of shade. They free range in open pasture during the day if they like, but we are in the deep south and the heat plus the humidity has been unforgiving this summer, no since the 1st of April.