Chicken exercise and entertainment are important during the winter months and this project is a super-easy way to help your flock get both!
Why Chicken Exercise?
Helping your chickens get the exercise they need is important during the winter months when they’re not as active as they are during the summer. Not only is exercise good for them, but it also helps keep them from getting bored.
Why would you care if your chickens are bored? Well, bored chickens often start picking on each other. (Just like the kids in the backseat on a long road trip!) That picking can actually lead to harm for chickens, however, so avoiding boredom is a good goal.
Chicken Exercise is Easy
It just takes a few simple supplies and a few minutes of time to get your chickens set up with their own chicken exercise equipment. I’ll show you how easy it can be!
Look at the picture below. What do you see?
It’s a low-tech chicken gym. Yep, that’s right.
Don’t believe me?
Let me explain…
How to Make a Low-Tech Chicken Gym
First, buy a cabbage. This lowly vegetable, made famous on St. Patrick’s Day (although I have heard a rumor that St. Patrick didn’t even eat corned beef and cabbage…but that’s a debate for another time…) and from all the people around the world that constantly decide they want to try to lose weight with the “Cabbage Soup Diet”, is about to be transformed.
You just need some gym transformation tools to get the job done.
First, drill a hole through the middle of the cabbage.
Run a rope through the hole and hang the cabbage in your chicken run.
At first, hang it low enough that the chickens can see and peck at it. You want them to get a taste for it and understand that it’s actually something they can eat.
After you’ve given them some time to nibble, shorten the rope just a tad. Not too much, just over their heads. Low enough they can still get at it, but high enough that they have to stretch or even jump a bit to get it.
Ta DA! Chicken exercise gym in less than 10 minutes.
This trick is great to give your flock something to entertain themselves with during the long, cold, boring winter. If you’re having pecking problems, the novelty of their ‘chicken gym’ will give them something constructive to focus on. Plus, it’s a healthy treat. And it takes very little time and money to make it.
Fresh veggies + Exercise + Distraction + Entertainment = Happy Chickens
Happy Chickens = Happy Chicken Owners!
See, I told you it was more than just a cabbage! I wish I could get my exercise equipment so cheap!
