Feathered Friend Friday

Welcome to our series "Feathered Friend Friday." Every Friday I write a post with interesting facts, photos, or funny stories about my chickens and guineas. If you need to catch up, you'll find all the Feathered Friend Friday posts here. 

Here in Missouri, we are stuck in a major heat wave. Today's high was 105! That is some serious heat. I've written about how much my older chickens love yogurt on hot summer days, and I wanted to introduce yogurt to our new chicks. I was sure they'd happily gobble it down on a hot day like today.

I had totally forgotten about how wary chicks are of anything new! My older chickens come running when they see me carrying anything in my hands because they think I'm bringing them treats (and that is usually the case haha). But the new guys just stared at the bowl trying to figure out what it was, then finally walked away wanting nothing to do with it!

I picked a few of them up and stuck their beaks in the yogurt, knowing if they just tried it they would love it. That didn't really work too well, though.

I had an idea to combine the new, scary yogurt with something they were familiar with; something I knew they'd scarf up. I sprinkled some of their feed on top of the yogurt, sat the bowl down, and immediately they began to peck at the feed and inadvertently got some bites of yogurt in the process! Once the grain was gone off the top, they were still dipping their beaks in the bowl for some bites of yogurt. Success!

Pretty much everything is old hat to my chickens, but the new chicks are still learning about the world. I have to remember to take it slow and let them explore and figure things out in their own time.

~Tammy