How smart are your chooks?

breedmorehens · **Joined:** Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:32 pm **Posts:** 6

My girls know exactly when it is 5pm on the dot and the second it hit 5 they run for the coop and wait for mum to come with a good night treat. Its true dead on 5pm they do it every day it is so funny when I show people and they can't believe it, how do they know the time? do your girls do these sorts of clever things?

Sebducks · **Joined:** Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:41 pm **Posts:** 812

Smart little cookies, its an inbuilt instinct which becomes habitual same as dairy cows know when its milking time and start to make their way to the sheds.

breedmorehens · **Joined:** Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:32 pm **Posts:** 6

They do amaze me as you can set your watch by them they are quite remarkable little feathered friends so much character

Sebducks · **Joined:** Wed Mar 11, 2009 3:41 pm **Posts:** 812

Yes and when you pick up the bucket to feed them they all gather around

Petite Poulet · **Joined:** Thu Jun 09, 2011 7:17 pm **Posts:** 5219

My Trio of Lavender Araucana's free range in the afternoon. I shut the door of the chook tractor when the are out, so that the wild birds can't get in eat their feed.

If they don't lay their eggs in the tractor in the morning, both girls knock on the back door to let me know that they want to go home to lay their egg and the rooster even crows and flaps his wings to get my attention. They take off and waddle back to the tractor and I let them and they hop on their nesting box! They know the fake plastic egg from their pretty blues on and evict it from the nesting box.

My rooster sleeps in on the weekend. He crows at 7am, 5am on weekdays now, 6am during the Winter, but always at 7am on the weekend. Not looking forward to daylight savings! My rooster even sits on the hens eggs!

One of my hens has never laid an egg on a Sunday, it is her day of rest!

Never underestimate the intelligence of a chook!

beaktime · **Joined:** Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:51 am **Posts:** 48

That is funny that they have such a good sense of time. My chickens always amaze me with the things they do and come up with. I think chickens are very smart animals.

breedmorehens · **Joined:** Thu Sep 15, 2011 1:32 pm **Posts:** 6

Yes very smart I think so too beaktime thanks for sharing your clever girls and boys stories so far I am enjoying them very much

Karen_H · **Posted:** Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:57 am

They are amazing aren't they? I always check mine about 7:50am in the morning on the way to work. As soon as they see me coming up the back steps they start clucking and run to the gate :-D

I can sit and watch their antics for hours! They have large yard however I cannot let them freerange - we have five dogs on our property and one Border Collie in particular is a bit of a worry with them :-?

He tries to round them up when they are in their yard so I hate to think what he would do if they were out :oops:

My dad wants to build a chicken tractor so they can get on the grass and in the vegie garden a bit

All our chooks are getting quite old now but I still get about 3 eggs a day. We are going to rearrange our pens and then hope to get some new ones soon [smilie=a_withstupid.gif]

Cheers
Karen

Baxter · **Joined:** Fri Sep 16, 2011 3:08 pm **Posts:** 3

Mine know the different colours of the buckets I have one for the scraps which is red and I use a blue bucket for the grey water and if I carry the blue bucket they pay no attention to me but if I carry the red bucket they come running and they are at my feet they really are much smarter than many people give them credit for

Hens and Hobbits · **Posted:** Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:13 pm

We don't need an alarm clock. We have a rooster. He crows precisely at 5am each morning to greet the day, and call the other bird's to start their morning songs in sequence, the kookaburra, magpie then blackbird.

The kookaburra laughed, the magpie warbled, the blackbird was singing, but no crows from the rooster...

I thought a fox had got them, as they and their cubs had been sighted in the bush across the road. Fearing the worst I went out to investigate, only to see that girls were already in their nesting boxes laying, and they probably had told him to be quiet! [smilie=a_rolling.gif]

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