Chickens in the House!

Mrs. Homestead here:

I’d planned to give you all a progress report on the backyard redesign, which features such wonders as the Germinator ™, the Trough of Garlic ™, the Fan of Pharmacy ™ and the Screens of Discretion (also tm).

But the camera crapped out on me. So, until I figure it out (Which means until Erik gets home and I can shove the darn thing at him and say, “Fix your camera!”),  I’m offering up this picture of a home invasion, poultry style.

Don’t know about you other chicken keepers, but our ladies are obsessed with the house. If they’re loose, they sit on by the back door and watch us through the glass. And if we leave the door open, they try to venture inside–though they don’t seem to much like the texture of kitchen floor. We don’t let them stay, but it’s funny to watch them try to creep in.

I was cracking up when I took this picture. You probably can’t see it, but our Red there, Stewpot, is pecking at a jar of popcorn–and encountering the phenomenon of glass for the first time. She thought she’d hit the mother lode.

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16 Comments

  1. Our chickens also seem fascinated by our house. The ones that were in the brooder boxes in the house and garage especially! One rooster (Rudy) was especially fixated. Every morning at 10 he would crow right at the screen door, then poop on the porch right where we walked. Talk about a crappy morning! The new flock was all in the garage and quickly transitioned outside, they mostly stay away so far.

  2. I miss the days of my duck waiting by the sliding glass door, because she was so sure it was better inside. We’d let her in for a minute, she’d realize there were no snails, and leave. But we went through this almost everyday.

  3. More than once I have heard coming from the kitchen the clicking of chicken toes on the kitchen floor.Our hens always head straight for the dogs food bowl.

  4. Our three chickens very much like to hang out on our back porch, which is up a bunch of stairs from the yard. It’s mysterious, since there’s really not much for them to eat or do there, aside from peck unenthusiastically at our poor potted rosemary plant. They, too, like to poop on our doormat. They don’t like our kitchen floor, which is a sort of blue linoleum- my theory is that it looks like water to them…

  5. Adorable! I wish our hens could get that close but our dogs keep them at bay. One of our hens is obsessed with the roof and when i come home from work i sometimes find her up there acting like a weather vane. I have since named her Chicken Little as she seems to believe the sky is falling, why else would she be up there?

  6. When the kids leave the screen door open the chickens usually make a beeline for the house. They were hatched in the house and are always eager to revisit. Our patio table is right outside our kitchen window and when I am cooking dinner a chicken or two will hop up on the table to see what’s going on inside.

  7. My hens loved the dog kibble too. 😛 I’d always thought the reason why my chickens are fascinated with the house, is because that’s where the servant with the feed and food scraps emerges from…. and perhaps they have memories of when they were younger running rampant in the house when they weren’t confined in the brooder.

  8. My family and I often have the uncomfortable feeling that we are “on exhibit” for our chickens. They huddle in front of the sliding glass door that opens into our dining room, heads cocked sideways, eyes blinking slowly.

  9. Ours come in the doggie door, but they can’t manage to get out once in. Early on, Bigwig used to hop right on our bed, and lay an egg on my pillow. Talk about breakfast in bed, it doesn’t get any more fresh.

  10. Oh yeah, I’ve had spies come up onto the patio and hop up the couple steps and peer into the screen door and scare the heck out one of the cats. This is what happens if I have them in their pen outside the run, working over dirt for me, and one of the rhode island reds (usually Geraldine) hops out, and leads a couple others to do the same.

    There was an episode where one of the buffs came in because I’d left the screen door open for the older cat to venture outside while I was working outside and the hens were penned up. I knew she was inside because I heard Lucy hissing and then heard a loud buGAWK and Lucy flew out the door in a panic. I had to fetch Edwina from the cats’ food dish and put her back into the run. Oh she was pissed at me. It was ‘fuhfuhfuhfuhfuhfuhfuhfuh’ the whole time she was tucked under my arm, and you know I heard her insert some ‘k’s in there.

  11. Oh, yes, our girls love to come in the house! Wouldn’t be so bad if they were potty trained. LOL Come to think of it, though, all of the wildlife likes to hang out at our back door. We had a squirrel that used to show up every morning when I was fixing breakfast and scratch at the sliding door. There were wild mallards that would show up every day at dinner time for 3 years running (didn’t matter if we ate at a different time – as soon as we sat down at the table, they’d show up and peck on the glass). We’ve even had skunks, raccoons and a blue heron show up at the door. Maybe suburban wildlife like people watching. 🙂

  12. We have a black rock, she is coming into her 12th year. She is such a character. She comes in the house looking for us, well her sweetcorn which she loves, and creates until we give it to her. She will then sit on the door mat not allowing our cat to come in. She has been a joy to have. She is also still laying eggs.

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