Exercise is very important for your chickens. In their natural habitat they walk, scratch and dust bathe each day. Just like a human, moving around builds strong bones and strong leg muscles.
If your hens are penned and are not able to run free for a while each day, make sure they have an opportunity to fly or jump to a roosting bar. A tree stump placed in a corner of the pen will give them something to hop on to. Even though mine do get to roam around the yard, their pen does have 3 roosting bars (they are really strong tree branches) and two tree stumps for them to use. If you don't have any stumps, you can use a couple of stacked cinder blocks. The blocks will act as a file, keeping those nails rimmed! When it rains, they all use the branches and stumps because they don't want to go away from the covered pen and get wet.
A strong chicken is a healthy chicken!
I absentmindedly put a board ( or roosting bar - now I know what to call it) up high in my coop, and immediately all five of the chickens flew up on it. It became their favorite roosting spot, even in inclement weather.
ReplyDeleteMine like to preen their feathers while perched. Sometimes they even take a little nap!
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