We kept the Chantecler chickens locked in their coop for a couple of weeks, hoping to get them bonded both to the coop and to Pierre, the one Chantecler rooster we kept. Lisa optimized on ‘nice’ and ‘large’. I warned her about that, nice roosters get laid about as often as nice guys.
Saturday we finally caught the last of the Icie boys with their horned helmets and motorcycles, so on Sunday I let the Chanteclers out. Despite the miserable weather they trickled out of the coop and wandered about. It was sufficiently miserable that I let a few roost in the tree, hoping they would get the hint, and go back to their coop. No joy. Monday it stopped raining. By the time I went to close up the coop, every single one of them (including Pierre) was asleep somewhere else.
Today they didn’t even go back and check out their coop. They scrounged food and water from the other birds and bedded down outside again. Half of them were in the tree and quite happy looking, the other half on the bench on the porch, unhappy looking but not going in.
We grabbed them and threw them back in the coop. We have a problem here.
Nobody ever said that chickens were the smartest birds in the coop.