Caution About Hanging Treats

[PDXChickenLove]

I wanted to share a quick caution about hanging treats for chickens. After I saw some great ideas about hanging cabbage, corn, lettuce, flock-block etc in the run to encourage the chickens to get greens, stay active and reduce conflict, I began hanging cabbage for my girls this winter. They loved it and would go through a head of cabbage in a day. I especially made sure to put a new head of cabbage out when I was going out of town and the 'chicken sitters' would be over as the chickens only get to free-range a for a couple of hours a day while I'm gone.

Unfortunately, I didn't forsee that the string/rope/chain that you are using to hang it can become a hazard. This past weekend while I was away, my 'chicken sitters' called urgently to let me know that they had returned for the afternoon visit and found one of my SLW hanging by her leg from the string. They didn't know how long she'd been upside down, without any way to take pressure off of her leg and they quickly rescued her.

The story has a happy ending, as my little Currant (the SLW) is walking better each day and barely has a limp today, but I can imagine that much worse could have occurred.

I offer this story as a caution for those who are hanging treats for their birds - this could have ended much more poorly in a lot of ways. I know that I'll be using stationary treat containers (wire mesh containers attached to the run and other similar things) in the future.

I hope this helps!

 

[honeybunny]

Oh gosh, silly chicken! Wonder how she even got up like that. But thanks for the tip, and I'm glad your hen is okay.

 

[PDXChickenLove]

Exactly my thought! I can't imagine how she managed it, but I'm sure she won't be the only one ever to get caught up in that predicament! I'm glad she's okay too!

 

[furbabymum]

I'm having to be a lot cleaner about how I go about doing my chickens. I've such a large barn that I keep the trash in there and only take it out when the bags are full. Darn poultry got into the trash and we had to catch both a guinea and a duck to get string (from the feed bags) off of their legs. Poultry are really talented!