The Poultry Keeper

crazypianolady · Joined: 26 Mar 2008 Posts: 667 Location: Nottinghamshire

......do your hens remember which one is 'home'? Or when they've all been out, do they just go in which ever's handy?

NannyP · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:03 pm Post subject:

They remember.......mostly.

Having said that, since I have allowed some integration recently, Mrs CLB has decided to decamp to the younger members coop. This was once her home though, so might be why she has chosen to return.

debcat · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:07 pm Post subject:

mine all squash into one
and I really do mean squash, at the last count there was 17 hens and 1 turkey in a house meant for 8 Shocked

I figure if they weren't happy they would move to another
there's 3 that are empty but popholes are open and the barn where the rest of them sleep

Itsybitsy · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Posts: 1327 Location: Leicestershire

Mine generally return to the correct one, it's a bit of mayhem really as they get fed in the coops so you sometimes get a bit of swapping but it's just really in the food scrabble. In the adults I have two houses and the birds all run together in the same field, on rare occasions one will go into the wrong one at night. They don't do it the next night though.

One of my cow customers has a 12,000 bird free range unit, 6,000 birds in 2 sections, they also ran in one field he said the only problems he had was when someone left the internal door open.

Itsybitsy