How do I keep this chicken with the others?

[LaurelC]

We have a flock of ~50 free range chickens. They travel around our farm in a mobile coop built onto a trailer. They all know where home is and all go to bed in the trailer every night. The eggmobile is currently ~700 feet from the house (as the crow flies, more like 1000 the way any living being would travel) and up a pretty big hill. I have ONE chicken that every morning makes her way down to the house and hangs out/makes a racket. Any time I go outside she goes running and takes off up the hill, only to return again half an hour later. I'm working on training one of my dogs to drive her up the hill, but I don't want her hanging out around the house and pooping on my porch. This morning she brought a friend with her. She also got herself stuck in a rock pile when she ran from me and I had to extricate her/drive her back up to the coop.

Any recommendations for how to get this menace to stay with the rest of the birds and leave my house alone? The path that the tractor is going to be taking will move the birds farther from our house, but I'm not sure that matters all that much.

[edit] I've looked everywhere, and can't find a nest anywhere that she may be hiding. Our flock is only 21 weeks old at this point and it's my understanding that ameraucana type birds (she's an "easter egger") tend to lay later than others. [/edit]

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[azygous]

You have one big thing in your favor - these chickens are not very old and terribly ingrained in their habits yet. However, breaking a chicken of an unwanted habit is every bit as difficult as breaking a human of an unwanted habit.

Basically, you break a habit by associating it with something so unpleasant that the habit is then avoided to avoid the extremely unpleasant thing.

Just as you would want to know a little bit about the person's likes and dislikes when trying to break them of a habit, it also makes breaking a chicken of a habit quicker and easier. You might be able to take advantage of a personality quirk.

You might try to come up with something to make hanging out near your house very unpleasant for chickens. Many chickens do not like to be sprayed with water suddenly. A motion controlled sprinkler might work. Or sudden loud noise and motion which can be achieved in a low tech way with a dog trained to chase the chickens off to a high tech motion controlled noise and mobile device. Amazon sells everything. I'd not be surprised you could find something there that would be effective and also amusing.

 

[azygous]

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=motion+c...bird+deterrent+devices,aps,203&ref=nb_sb_noss

 

[LaurelC]

Thanks! It sounds like I'm on the right track. I'll keep chasing her off and work with the dog to continue driving her up the hill every time I see/hear her (she makes quite the racket!). I'd prefer not to deal with motion activated sprinklers just because I'm outside all around the house regularly with the dogs and they're cowardly border collies, so getting sprayed might just make them afraid of going outside. Also we have a lot of wild birds around the house that we love to watch. Maybe I'll see if I can sneak up on her with a spray bottle.

 

[azygous]

Another thing you can do is to buy several yards of bird netting and erect a barrier to deter the chickens. In very little time, they will give up and decide hanging out with their flock has more entertainment value.

 

[LaurelC]

Another thing you can do is to buy several yards of bird netting and erect a barrier to deter the chickens. In very little time, they will give up and decide hanging out with their flock has more entertainment value.

We don't have a fenced yard. I'm not even sure how I'd go about using this to keep her away, I assume she'd just go around it.

 

[Mrs. K]

get high powered squirt gun.