Chicken Ramp Lessons

While we were butchering Saturday, we exchanged some of the meat chickens for the egg chickens to help the balance in the coop. Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the new chickens had not come down from the coop to the run. We blocked the other chickens off in the run thinking maybe they were not letting them down (has happened before). We then realized that the new chickens could not figure out how to get down to the run on the ramp. We worked with them and they figured out how to get down eventually.

Later in the evening, we heard the frantic cries of one of the chickens. We went out to investigate and found one of the new ones could not figure out how to get up the ramp. We tried putting feed down of the ramp but she was too freaked out about the approaching darkness that she did not even see it. Chuck finally ended up crawling under the chicken coop and helping her get up the ramp.

This morning, I noticed that the new ones are not down again.  I will leave them up for part of the day and then we will help them down this afternoon. We will see if Chuck will need to assist any of them back up to the coop. The joy of backyard chickens.