The amigos are getting the hang of perching at bedtime

Last night was the fifth evening since starting to perch the amigos. I had decided to try them on the back perch but they had other ideas. To my surprise when I went to check on them they were already trying to get to their usual perch instead of heading for the corner of the chicken shed.

This was the line up on the other side of the shed

The three bigger girls were on the back perch

I just watched and photographed the amigos as they all tried to get into position.

Vanilla and Marmite are first up to the perch

Spangle joins them and Smoke is on the back perch

Salmon is half way and Smoke is looking for a way up

Smoke is up but has toppled Salmon down

Finally they all make it to the perch

Spangle turns to face the same way as the other girls

I can see that the problem is that the perch isn’t long enough to make it easy for the girls to jump to a good sized gap although it is long enough once they are all up. The problem is that there is extra space nearest the door but they all want to jump up nearest the back corner.

Several times Salmon jumped for the middle and landed on top of the other girls. This causes lots of flapping and some girls were getting toppled down again. Smoke once again went for the back perch but changed her mind when the others were all on the side perch. She actually went back outside the pop hole before coming back in and trying again. She managed to force her way into the middle of the group.

I think that they all like to be in the middle positions which causes lots of jostling and unbalancing. I felt quite pleased though that they all managed to get up in the end. I think that having done it once they will now perch themselves every night.

It would actually be easier for them to perch on the back perch but chickens are habitual and I think they will now want to stay with this perch. I hope that it will get easier with practice. This is the first time I have had more than three girls at a time learning to perch which has made it a little trickier.

It will be interesting to see how they get on tonight.

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6 Responses to The amigos are getting the hang of perching at bedtime

  1. Sophie says:

    Well done girls!! xx

  2. marion says:

    Nearly there.

  3. David says:

    I love to hear the shenanigans around perching as light starts to fade. They are doing really well and, according to what my dad used to say, are about the right age for perching. He always claimed that perching too young could mis-shape the breastbone, if it hadn’t hardened!

    • Carol says:

      They are about five months now. I had never heard of that about perching too young. Perhaps that’s why they have just started perching at night recently. They have perched during the day since we first got them. They love to perch high up. When I first started with seramas we put low perches around the run for them but they are never used as they prefer to perch high.

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