Have you ever tried to catch a chicken?
If you have, you know that it is almost impossible, they fly into your face, squawk like they are getting killed, and will run incredibly fast. You slip and fall on your knees trying to catch them, and they always get away. And then they look back at you all proud and like they’ve defeated you! What about herding chickens? That is even harder. CHICKENS DON'T HERD! They go everywhere, except the way you want them to, and they don't stay in a flock, they spread all over the place.
So how do you catch a chicken?
We have found that training them to come when called is usually the best way, since you never have to catch them at all! It’s also pretty funny to watch chickens come running to you!
So, let’s learn how to train chickens to come when called! To train our chickens we simply would yell “here chickie chickie“ and throw food scraps (or scratch) in their pen every time we went out to them.
We would sometimes not fill up their feeder the night before, so they were hungry the next morning, which makes them listen better.
Chickens will learn very fast (although I wouldn’t consider chickens smart animals!) if you do it every day. If you are inconsistent, they will take longer to learn and may not come when you actually need them back in their pen. You could even give them some exercise by having two people sit on either side of their pen and call them back and forth!
If your chickens get out of there pen and they are not yet trained to come when called you can use a large net to get them back in until they are trained.
I hope this blog was helpful and you can train your chickens to come when called! If you have found any easier ways to catch chickens, comments would be appreciated!
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