Day two with the umbrella

Yesterday we put an umbrella in the chickens garden area, to give them a bit of dry scratch space. They didn’t like it and refused to go under it.

This morning when I did my cleaning jobs I could tell they still hadn’t ventured under it as all the poop was on or next to the patio area.

At lunch time we decided to bribe them with their favourite treat of yogurt. I showed them the two little white bowls (I split it into two to make easier for them all to get at it) and placed them under the umbrella. The yogurt proved irresistible and first Dotty and Pepper went to the bowls, soon followed by Bluebell the lastly Treacle.

Dotty and Pepper were bravest and went to the yogurt under the umbrella first

I know the two little bowls look rather like eggs in this photo but it’s just the sunlight on them.

They all venture under the umbrella for the yogurt

Once the yogurt was finished and I had removed the bowls, the chickens retreated back to the patio area and continued to avoid the umbrella. I had hoped that once they had been under it they would accept it, but it seems this is going to take longer then I thought it would.

I decided to try sprinkling dried meal worms under the umbrella and rattled the container to get their attention. They came to the meal worms and Dotty and Pepper were even scratching at the earth for a few minutes.

Meal worms under the umbrella

Once again though, when the meal worms had all gone the chickens returned to the patio area. I had no idea it was going to be this difficult to get them used to something new. I just hope over the next few days they get used to it.