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Getting Home

Chickens are best transported in a dark environment, such as a closed cardboard box or an animal carrier with a blanket over it. They must not be able to get out, but be able to breathe! When you get home take the container straight to the hen house, don’t open it on the way as they can jump out in a flash. For the same reason, open the box in the hen house itself. The chickens should be left in the open box to come out on their own, young ones especially may take a while to feel confident.

The chickens need to be ‘imprinted’ with the identity of their new home. They need to go straight into the hen house and stay there until late afternoon the next day. That is assuming they have not had a long journey or been away from food and water for any length of time before you get them. If that is the case, they should be given access to food and water before being shut in. If they are joining existing hens, leave them in the box until the others have gone to bed and then put the new ones in. Everyone will have to stay in the house until late afternoon the next day to ensure that the new ones are imprinted. If they do not go to bed on their own at dusk when they are let out, they will need to be shooed in, or caught and put in. If that is the case, then leave them in until lunchtime the next day and so on until they can be trusted to put themselves to bed. Even if they don’t immediately get the hang of putting themselves to bed at dusk, they will do so within a few days.

The easiest way to catch a chicken is to grab a leg. They can be carried upside down by holding both feet, but I prefer to carry them the right way up on my arm. If you have a struggling chicken it is best to keep hold of her feet and hold her upside down, as she will stop struggling immediately. If holding a chicken in your hands, rather than under your arm, it is important to hold her tight enough to pin her wings down, but not too tight. When they become tame, they will often squat down in front of you and then it is easy to pick them up. Once they are imprinted they will soon settle into the daily routine. They will also soon associate you with food and come running towards you. Mine even flap their wings to help them run faster. Talk to them and you will find that they respond. At night I call ‘Good night Girls’ as I shut the henhouse door and they ‘bauk, bauk’ back. Give them a collective name to call them, I call mine, ‘chouk chouks’, and you will be surprised at how obedient they can become.

Shutting the henhouse at night is vital. Although they put themselves to bed, they must be shut in, for fear of a fox attack. Foxes can attack during the day, but the greatest risk is during the hours of darkness.

If your chickens are in anything other than an enclosed pen, they will need their wings clipping. Their natural instinct is to roost as high up as possible, which will be up a tree if one is handy. Generally it is only necessary to do one wing, as it puts them off balance for flying. For my young point of lays I clip both wings, as they are so light they can jump/fly up to quite a height. Clipping a wing is easy and does not hurt the chicken at all; it is just like clipping fingernails. Holding the chicken sideways on a surface spread out the wing on the side way from you. Starting from the tip of her wing, separate the first ten feathers and cut straight across them with a pair of scissors, about halfway down the feathers. The wings will need to be clipped again when new feathers have grown after a moult.

Whilst you have a grip of the chicken it is as well to dust her with louse powder as a precaution. The only accessible patch of skin is her ‘armpit’, so lift up a wing and give a liberal shake of louse powder under her wing. Do the some the other side. By then the chicken, your hands and the surface you are using will all be covered in powder, but the job is done.

Hens naturally have a pecking order. ‘Pecking order’ is a firmly established phrase in the English language, as is ‘hen pecked’ and both are a reality in keeping hens. In a small flock of 2 or 3 it may not be noticeable, but in a larger number of hens a ‘head hen’ will emerge. The others with defer to her, especially over food and will eat when she moves on. Hens will soon pick on a weaker member of the flock and the head hen will think nothing of taking a good peck at a weaker bird, or a newcomer, often getting a beakful of feathers. The attacked hen with let out a squawk, but will come to no other harm. She will have had her card marked and will know where she is in the pecking order. If, however, there is a continued series of squawks then serious bullying is going on. There are two options in this case; one is to remove the bullied hen to a place of safety and the other is to deal with the bully. The easiest way to deal with a bully in my experience is to remove her for a few days. This allows the pecking order to readjust and she will find it hard to re-establish herself on the new order. Making her squat, by pushing her down gently, will also take a bully down a peg or two.