Wrangling Chickens - Can Chickens Smell?

             

I am grateful to be house sitting for my friend that resides in Door County, Wisconsin.  It is so quiet and serene here, and I’m grateful for the chance to unplug and reset. There’s nothing like walking out the door to the expansive fields and open sky. 

There is a chicken coop on the property and part of house sitting means getting some quality time with these lovely ladies.  They provide the most beautiful and nutritionally dense eggs, with their wide range of colors and their dark yolks. Every morning we are gifted a dozen eggs!

The morning is also when they receive their fresh water, their pellet food, and their food scraps from the day before.  They couldn’t be more pleased to see me open the door with these bountiful gifts! After they eat to their fill, they fly the coop in order to enjoy a day of blissful wandering through the fields. 

When it nears sundown is when it’s time to escort the chickens into their coop.  The first night we let them wander, I quickly realized that I didn’t know the first thing about getting them to go back to their coop!  I called my friend and she suggested using their treat of dried worms to entice them into the coop….but the only problem was that there was barely a handful left.  

So I attempted to shake the bag to make them think they were getting the coveted treat.  This idea barely seemed to make a dent.  I did throw a couple on the ground near the door and shook the bag violently, yelling “here chicken, chicken, chicken!”, as I was hoping they would catch a whiff of those tasty worms.  Can chickens smell?  I still don’t know….and to be honest, those worms seemed to have zero effect on them.  I’m guessing it was the lack of quantity.

Dawn and I scurried around and were a great team in getting the chickens safely into the coop.  One of us would man the door as the other shooed them out of trees and bushes.  This really is not an easy task, especially when it is cold and blustery.  You would think the chickens would want to go inside by the heat lamp, but I also hear that they aren’t the smartest animals,  

All the girls were in except for one dark feathered friend.  She got herself nestled safely on top of the coop, just out of reach with the longest sticks we could find.  My attempted jabs at her only helped her to nestle into a more comfortable position that was at a safer distance.

I sent Dawn into the woods to get a longer stick and she returned with a perfectly solid and slightly rounded stick, perfect for chicken catching!  We were on opposite sides of the coop, and she couldn’t see what she was doing, but her stick quickly poked up at just the right spot on the chicken's breast.  I know from my days of owning birds that birds will step up on a stick that is pushed under their breast…and that’s exactly what Dawn did blindly, as if guided by spirit. 

I yelled a few directions at Dawn to get the stick in just the right spot and asked her to push up on the chicken's breast.  It was so windy out there, and I was impressed that she was able to hear and follow through with my directions so perfectly. The chicken stepped up onto the stick and I was overjoyed!

She slowly brought the hen down, who surprisingly stayed on the stick.  I ran to the door to open it, but the bird flew off in the wrong direction and ran into the woods, like she was avoiding certain death.

We almost fell over laughing and couldn’t believe how close we got to getting her in.  But we decided that it was getting too late and too cold to continue trying to help an animal that clearly doesn’t realize we are helping her.  We wished her the best of luck on this cold and rainy night, and ran into the house.

That evening it was stormy and it made me wonder if the chicken correlates the fact that she refused to go to her well-known shelter and is now subject to wind, rain and coyotes. I highly doubt it…but here I am, wishing her to be able to make a better choice next time.  It really goes to show that a creature is unable to accept help until they are able to see that they need help and that they are willing to see the help as help, rather than a hindrance. 

With Gratitude…Lynda