94 LISTENER JUNE 1 2019
THE GOOD LIFE
D
o chickens get bored? I
ask this not in any sort
of philosophical way,
as in: what came first,
the chicken or the egg? Besides,
the answer to that ancient
conundrum is obvious: neither.
What actually came first was
a dinosaur. What’s more, boffins
at the University of Kent have
discovered that chickens (and
turkeys) have the fewest number
of chromosomal changes of any
bird, making your backyard chook
more dinosaurian than any other
bird. So, the question should be:
what came first, the dinosaur or
the egg? But, I digress.
The more pressing and rather
more practical question of
whether chickens get bored
and what to do about it has
been bothering me since we
were forced to lock up our four
evil chooks following The Great
Bumblefoot Scare back in March.
Stoic readers of these ramblings
may recall that Little Linda, the
youngest, though biggest, of our
hens, contracted a rather bad case of
the inflammatory skin condition and
had to be rushed to the vet.
The cure was $213 in drugs. The
preventative, the vet sternly advised,
was to lock ’em up in their run and
throw away the key. It seems our
decision to let our chooks freely rangeLooking after
the health and
well-being of evil
chickens has its
challenges.
Crying fowl
GREG
DIXON
around the garden and grounds meant they were
coming into contact with rough surfaces, such as
our gravel driveway, that might, through cuts to
their feet, lead to infections such as bumblefoot.
Well, a prison sentence of life without parole was
all very well for the vet to insist on. She hasn’t had
to put up with the moaning, the cage-rattling and
the name-calling since. Though our evil chickens
have a luxurious coop and run – the grassy, fenced
run is more than 50sq m, with a lovely silk tree forsummer shade – they seem to regard their five-star
accommodation, which comes with three excellent
meals a day, in much the same way Papillon
regarded Devil’s Island.T
o ameliorate the situation, we decided, after
about a month of moaning – evil chickens
have foul mouths – that towards the end of
each day we’d let them out to free-range just a bit,
knowing that the fading light would force them
back to the coop within an hour or two, or before
they had time to get into trouble. And still, in the
hours before we let them out, they’ve moaned.They were bored, bored, bored, they
said, between threats.
And then, out of the blue, Dad’s
wife, Beth, sent through a link
for “How to Make a DIY Hanging
Cabbage to Keep Your Chickens
Entertained”. Now there’s nothing I
like better than a project that takes
almost no effort, thought, time, skill
or money. So, this was my kind of
challenge. All that’s required is a
cabbage, a drill and some rope.
First, you drill a hole through
your cabbage; second, using
the rope, tie it to something,
in this case a branch of the silk
tree; third, your chooks will stop
moaning and start singing your
praises.
Only they didn’t. They went
nowhere near it. They refused
to look at it. This was a chicken
snub. Desperately, I googled
“How to amuse a chicken”. The
suggestions included adding a
mirror to the run and making a
piñata. I decided on a “chicken
swing”, because I had the
makings. Half an hour later, there
was also a chicken swing in the
run. They went nowhere near it,
but they did give it the stink eye.
Another chicken snub.
Depressed, I retired to the
house for more fretting. But a new
day brought new hope. The following
day, Michele, after she’d let the
evils out of the coop, watched as
Catherine, who believes she’s now
Head Hen, gave the cabbage a careful
peck. The following Sunday, I was
able to confirm the cabbage had
gone from sleeper hit to mainstream
crowd-pleaser.
Bored chickens are a tough crowd,
but build it and they will come.G Eventually. l
RE
G^
D
IX
O
N
Tough crowd: the chickens pretending they don’t see their
playground.There’s nothing
I like better thana project that
takes almost
no effort,thought, time,
skill or money.