Chickens in trees.....

When I was younger and we had chickens, I remember the task of having to put all the chickens into the coop before it got dark so that the foxes didn't have a midnight snack. If you were to ever open the coop at any stage through the night, you would discover them on perches asleep off the floor. This is normal all over the world, however, in typical fashion here at casa chaos nothing is ever normal.

My chickens don't get put away at night as there are no foxes, and as far as I am aware no predators which will kill the chickens through the night. the mums and chicks have boxes to sleep in at night, but that is to keep the chicks safe. Therefore, there are no perches in my coop, and this ponders the question where do the chickens sleep.

It didn't take me long to work out this question as one night on walking through the orchard there was a deathly silence other than the slight rustling of trees. As I looked up I could see feet and feathers and realised that the chickens and roosters were in the trees. This was an incredibly strange sight, and I moved quickly away, not because I was shocked, but because I was concerned I was going to get chicken shite on my head!

The next day I went down earlier to watch how they got into the trees as I was curious now to see if they flew, but they didn't. The chickens performed a strange movement of climbing using their beaks, which was incredibly affective. They all seemed to know when they had to head for the trees, and within minutes they were all safely out of the way.

I found this amusing and mentioned it on some chicken website (sad I know) where the "expert" chicken owners doubted my claimed and named 101 reasons why this was not possible. They made out that I was either a) clinically insane b) drunk or c) making it up. Now I would admit to one of those, but the other two not at this point.

Therefore I set out to prove them wrong, so camera in hand I marched to the orchard and begun taking pictures of my equally insane chickens. back I stomped to the office and uploaded, frantically trying to post pictures, and write sarcastic replies all at the same time. When finally I had posted and had they proof they wanted, I received a short answer back of "well they are obviously a native breed to your country, as normal chickens do not climb trees" I had it confirmed my chickens like me are not normal!