I thought some of you might get a good laugh out of this one. My DH has been taking care of the chickens since I've been taking care of the kids so much on my own while he's at work the last couple months (also gives him a chance to smoke before dinner).. he's slowly learning... very slowly how to do this. He had ordered a laser pointer in green last week & got the idea that if the cats will chase it to play maybe the chickens would as well. With 30 chickens still left out there he was looking for a good laugh... and got one. They won't chase it.. they RUN from it. Like its a coyote after them.. you could direct them to the coop door & into the coop just by moving the laser light on the ground around them. So by accident we found a super easy, very unstressful way for me to herd wayward Roos into the coop at night if he's late from work. Since being pregnant he refuses to let me run & chase the chickens any longer so I had stopped helping. (he thinks i might fall since the ground is uneven in our yard & kinda hilly) I ended up just letting him do it when he got home. We have been losing chickens again to them not all getting into the coop early enough without my help. Now i can officially help again.... while laughing my butt off which should be good for all of us. Wish i could get a video of it to show you but we are lacking in a video camera.
o & no it doesn't seem to cause them stress.. they don't squawk or anything.. just run from it. Its actually just as cute as it is hilarious to watch.
Chicken herding
Hahaha. that would be funny to watch..
LOL love it.
Congratulations Greykyttyn: I so glad your happily married and are getting that new Hubby trained...Laser hmm. So I could have stayed home and lasared them into the hen house...Now you tell me...LOL...Hay
Cody was playin with ours that way.. LOL It is really funny!
Now I've gotta try it. Glad to hear from you again Greykyttn and congrats.
GreyKyttyn sounds like you have a very concerned and considerate husband there. Congratulations on this new baby. You'll have more fun than with baby chicks. :)
I accidentally used a laser pointer on my chicks one night. On night, I used my DH's multipurpose" flashlight that has a flashlight on 1 click, a laser on the next click, both on the 3rd click before it turns off. I went to check on the girls, and thought I was turning off the flashlight, but was activating the laser. Well, the girls thought that was something to eat & the all started chasing it!! I had fun letting them chase it all around the coop & even up the walls!
So greykyttyn, yours are afraid of it & mine want to eat it!!
Hers is green; is yours red?
Congratulations, GreyKyttn!
Greykyttn congratulations
congratulations on the new buddle of joy! How interesting about the laser pointers. I bet the colors might have something to do with their reactions.
My chickens will peck at anything that is red.
I also have a red laser pointer... they eat that one. This one is green. He is going to order me a blue one soon. Will have to see if they run from blue as well. This is a good sized one too. The dot is about the size of a number two pencil when you shine it down. My red one was much smaller.
Thanks everyone! I so want to order baby chicks too this spring but I'm thinking i should wait till we get the house built... but then again... we could use a good amount of hens to start laying next fall so we have lots of eggs.
Are you building on the same property?
oh how neat. I use a small childs rake to heard my chickens in and a bamboo pole to herd the geese and yard ducks in.
I'd pay to see that. LOL
I did not know you were expecting. Congrats!!
yes we are porkpal we will be attempting to build up behind my mother's house.... need to stay close to my mother since we will be taking care of her when she is older. There is 9 acres there so plenty of room.
Thanks Cajuninky
That will be really nice for your mother. When is the baby due/
Aug 26th thru Sept 4th is the rough guess... unless i do like my mother... who goes an extra 4 weeks.... my DH's mother also carried him an extra 6 weeks... soooo who knows. It will get here when it does i guess.
oh going to be a hot summer for you Dear. Please take care to not over do it
That's awesome! I just use a broom to extend my "arms". It's still a pain though and I have one Buff Orpington that refuses to be corralled. She just looks at me like, really? We're going to try this again?
i put a bread sack over a dowel rod... then blew air into it & tied it off.. my buffs hated it & would run right into the coop every time i flopped it behind them.
LOL
Greykyttyn, so nice to hear from you and to know that a baby is coming and you're doing well. How funny about the laser! We could have used that back when we had guineas that we were trying to train to go into the chicken coop at night.
You think it would work on guineas?
Couldn't hurt to try. They were pretty stupid, although we did eventually get them to go in every night.
I go to the far side of the garden and shake a feed bag violently... they all make a b line for the coop.. no matter where they are! Course, it's a routine and they know I'll get close and scare the crap out of them if they don't get in when it's time. LOL
My Blue laser is trapped in the post office under all the snow... DH ordered it for me last week.. hopefully someone dug it out today & it will be in the mail box. :) I"ll take it out & see what happens. Chickens aren't outside but if i go in the coop I should be able to tell what they will do when they see it.