Our chickens don’t live in a cage. In fact, they don’t really even live in a normal chicken coop or pen. They live in a jungle gym, a veritable chicken wonderland.
We live in a rural community and normally our chickens would be allowed more freedom to range, but after a neighbour’s dog attacked them (city slickers and their dogs in a rural setting is another blog entry entirely…), they actually became quite frightened of open spaces.
Now our girls are not your normal chickens. They were rescued from a battery hen facility by Mayne Island Animal Sanctuary, from where we later adopted them. So these hens have known considerable trauma. We have painstakingly and lovingly restored their health and we definitely don’t want them to die at the paws or jaws of an over-indulged dog with no boundaries.
But back to the attack…
After the dog attacked them they stopped laying and reverted to some of their earlier stress behaviours. One chicken’s legs were always shaking, another started self-mutilating by tearing out her feathers and another one jammed herself in the corner of the coop and wouldn’t budge.
We did some research and found the formidable Dr. Temple Grandin’s new book Animal’s Make Us Human: Creating The Best Life For Animals. In the chicken section, Grandin provides a lot of useful information about chicken behaviour and about creating a safe, comfortable and calming habitat for chickens.
It was rather illuminating.
Now most people, particularly in urban settings, build a sturdy coop with perches, nesting boxes and water and food access – all the basic things a chicken needs. But in the outer pen, most people tend to build a square wire enclosure area with dirt and water. Nothing more.
But, chickens apparently do need more, much more.
If your chickens are lucky enough to be free-range and/or you were smart enough to build a large secure pen that includes bushes, trees, rocks and logs, you have probably got some very happy chickens.
We built our coop like most urban coops – an open area with a dirt floor.
Since the dog attack, and after the hens became more fearful of open spaces, they wanted cover, fought more, etc. – which brings me back to Dr. Grandin’s book. She explained that chickens are prey animals and birds feel calmer when you don’t inadvertently activate the fear response. “…fear comes from being exposed to potential predators,” she explains.
It was so simple; it makes you wonder why we all didn’t think of this before?
She also explained that providing perches in the coop and pen is also a good idea as they allow subordinate birds a place to retreat. One study found that subordinate birds on perches don’t get feather-pecked as much according to Grandin.
She adds that chickens, to remain calm and happy, need places to hide, areas for resting and separate areas for eating, places to perch, to dustbath, to rummage and simple enrichments (things for the hens to do).
So armed with Grandin’s advice we got to work.
We spent some time planning what we could do to provide all the various ‘stations’ for the chickens in a relatively small wire pen area (about 100 square feet for five chickens).
We sketched out a simple plan to ensure we were able to fit in all the stuff we needed (it helped to have an engineer partner).
We made the adjustments slowly with the hens watching us make the changes. We avoided loud power tools, tried to do most things as slowly and as quietly as possible with manual tools. We also fed them lots of treats to minimize the trauma. Most animals become very disturbed by rapid and numerous changes.
We first gathered old arbutus branches and windfall boughs of pine. We added these branches around the wire pen area so the gals would feel less exposed to predators and more like they were living in a forest.
The next day we brought in some rocks and created a dust bath area that also doubles as a scratching area for the chickens.
Over the course of the following week, we added outdoor covered areas and walkways, a perch, small partitions, and we brought in logs and branches to create areas of interest and small private places. My partner built a small outdoor coop for laying eggs and resting. We hung white organic cotton string for the girls to peck at (making sure they couldn’t pull it down and choke). We also created drinking areas where the chickens were able to drink without seeing each other nor potential predators.
Throughout the changes and additions, we did things the ‘Grandin way’, which is to put yourself in the place of the animal and look at things from their point of view. We got down on our hands and knees and tried to see things through a hen’s eyes.
It seemed to work.
After a few days of adjusting to the changes, the chickens love their new interactive jungle-gym pen area. They are laying much more and there is less fighting and feather pecking. The busier chickens have things to do while the quieter chickens have places to rest and hide.
Perhaps the biggest change we have noticed is that they seem content to be in their pen. Some sit quietly on their perches, others dig furiously in the digging area, another pecks constantly at the enrichment strings (we tie a chard leaf to the string) and others move about happily in the tunnel areas.
Prior to making the enhancements to their pen area, I didn’t realize that the living quarters we had created for them were no different than a cage for a parrot...
Prior to making the enhancements to their pen area, I didn’t realize that the living quarters we had created for them were no different than a cage for a parrot (or a enclosure at a zoo) – an area designed for a human to look at the bird but with no thought to what the bird needed or wanted.
Imagine if all urban chicken farmers (and all chicken keepers) seriously considered adding some enhancements to their chicken coop and pen areas? The world would be filled with happier chickens.
Creating a chicken jungle gym guarantees happier chickens. Happier chickens mean less fighting, less illness and better tasting eggs.
Valerie Williams is a writer living on Salt Spring Island, Canada with five chicken friends. She is the editor of GreenMuze.com.
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