Little by little the layers have been coming closer to the house and barn. That must mean they have expired all the bugs in their region of the field. Now chickens will only go so far when “grazing”. I decided to introduce the pullets to the mature flock of layers and move them all to a new area. Sounds easy enough……certainly they will love the new section of field with all the tasty bug morsels right? After an hour of moving the pen and getting stuck I found out that is just not so. I sat on the four-wheeler as group by group those birds ran all the way back to where I had just worked so hard to get them from. At that particular moment, I could have run them over. They were going to be moved to the east side of the pond, coyotes or not. I have to break them from seeing an area as “home” and start seeing their tractor as “home”. At this point their tractor was just a place to roost at night. Not to mention, some of those ladies are hiding eggs in various places other than their nice new nest boxes. Jacob and I brought the layer house back to the original spot. We waited for nightfall, rounded all the new pullets back up and moved the pen to the east side of the east pond. Hay was just cut out there so the grass is short, bugs are plenteous and the hedge row is far enough away to keep some of the predators at bay during the daylight. Tomorrow morning we will know if we made the right move!.....
Success with the layers! Their move worked. When they were let out I watched to see what they did. The group that heads up the wandering thought they knew where to go. After they reached the first terrace, they slowed down and started to look confused. A little further they realized they didn’t know where they were at all. Back to their tractor they came. They have stayed around it since! Score 1 for me, 0 for the layers……
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