eggs & tea

Are you thinking how to make your chickens more human friendly? It’s never too early to start hand taming your chicks. If possible, start from day 1.

I tap the brooder floor or make some noise to get their attention. Then I crush some feed into my palm and offer it to the chicks. I wait patiently and see which brave chick is first to eat. When that one chick is comfortable eating from my palm, other chicks join in a little while afterward. I try to do this every day for about 5 minutes so they’ll associate my hand with food. I continue to do this with my adult flock.

When the chicks get a little older, I plan to bring them small amount of cracked corn or other chick-friendly treats (avocado from Hillery, fresh coconut meat from Vic, grated carrot from our garden or a flat of freshly harvested wheat grass flat from Jim & Ruthie).

Have you tried other methods? I would love to hear your suggestions.

First is a slide show of day 2 chicks. I’m comparing partridge cochins and black australorps from several angles (head closeup, top view and side view).

Next are two videos for you to compare day 2 of the flock of my foster baby chicks (chick starter) and year 3 of my flock of adult hens (organic yellow corn tortilla chips).

This entry (Permalink) was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 1:53 am and is filed under baby chicks, chickens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.