# WILD Hens need help



## glanz (Jul 10, 2016)

We acquired a property with 4 wild hens, they roost in the trees at night and dig for bugs during the day and dig holes in dirt to lay eggs for us. They live on our land but also the empty land directly below ours, the problem is, is that land below ours is going to be developed soon (houses built on it). We are worried that when the hens land is being disrupted the hens won't know what to do. We'd like to provide them a coop on our land now for them to get used to prior to the land development so they will have a safe haven to come to once construction starts. Since they are wild and we don't want to change that, can anybody recommend a coop design that wild hens can come and go as they please? I'm thinking that the coop would need to stay open and have an in/out so if a predator came in the hens have an alternative way out. Has anybody had any experience with providing/designing/building a coop for WILD HENS before? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.


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## Fiere (Feb 26, 2014)

As long as they have the ability to come and go as they please they are going to go down into the construction zone. If they are used to roosting in trees and have gone feral, they won't ever come into a coop unless caught and penned to tame and retrain them.


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## Canon (Sep 7, 2016)

I agree, it is all based on their instinct. Give them time and see how they would react to the change and then act accordingly.


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## chickenqueen (Jan 9, 2016)

Have you ever thought about getting a rooster?A rooster may coerce the hens to a safer place plus,you might get some babies and increase the wild flock.


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## chippy99th (Dec 22, 2016)

Increase the "wild" flock only if you can contain them.

My neighbor thought it was a good idea to let her chickens breed without containing them. The result? Everyone in our neighborhood has battled for YEARS with feral chickens. They breed FAST and to this day we cannot keep a garden without it being destroyed, they bully our chickens when we let them out to free-range and they spread parasites and diseases. We have taken to capturing as many chicks as we can to contain them, but the adults are nearly impossible to catch after generations of living wild. Oh, and they've increased the feral cat population and also made our neighborhood more popular for coyotes. None of your neighbors will thank you for encouraging feral chickens to breed.

OK, sorry for the rant. If you want to catch the hens, it's entirely possible. You just have to make their new home with you very enticing! We've had success with this. Hens are motivated by food, roosters by the presence of hens. It would not be too hard to catch them and keep them in a coop. After being kept in the coop for a short period of time (maybe a week), all the ferals we've caught have gotten used to sleeping there and will return at night if let out to free-range during the day. They're still pretty wild, too. Not scared of us anymore, but they don't want to be held, that's for sure!


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## dawg53 (Aug 25, 2015)

You bring up valid points Chippy99th. Wild chickens were a major concern prior to the city of Jacksonville finally approving a chicken ordinance. There were areas in the city were they freely roamed at major intersections, hung out in some woods next to a McDonalds dumpster near where I live, as well as other areas in the city, and in general just being a nuisance. Animal control manager testified at the city council meeting for the ordinance that catching or trapping them was nearly impossible not to mention the manpower and overtime required. 
Several wannabe backyard chicken owners banded together and agreed to do a city wide chicken roundup. The city council approved the ordinance and sure enough, the wild chicken roundup was successful. I did not volunteer due to my concern with biosecurity issues.
Wild birds were taken to feed stores for resale or kept by their captors.
The city is over run with cats, mostly people dumping them off. The policy is to trap them, bring them to animal control to be neuteured/spayed, then picked up by whoever brought them in, then released back into the environment. 
The neighborhood we previously lived in literally stunk from cat smell with a "cat lady" who lived next door and fed approximately 30 or more stray cats twice a day making her neighborhood rounds with her wagon. It was a sight to see all those cats with their tails up in the air following her. Glad we're outta there.


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## glanz (Jul 10, 2016)

A strange ending to this story: we did end up buying a hen house for them and they laid eggs in it and roosted in it, lived uncaged as ferrels BUT then my son bought 2 large plastic geese as decorations for the yard and the hens saw them got scared must have felt their home was taken over and they all left the property and haven't been back since.....that was 6 months ago, so we decided to sell the chicken coop and we are now hen-less. This was all a learning lesson for us since we inherited these wild hens with the property, if we decide down the road to have hens, we will keep them cooped. It's a large property up on a private hill away from other neighbors but we surely wouldn't want them to go down the hill and bother other neighbors or breed and create a larger population. Thanks for everybody's input, i thought you all would like to know the ending to the story.


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## seminole wind (Aug 22, 2015)

what diseases and parasites do they leave? or are you talking about your own chicken getting it?


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## chippy99th (Dec 22, 2016)

That _is_ an interesting story!

I knew someone once that had adopted some baby ducklings. They had one of those fake swans floating in the pool and the ducklings would jump in and try to follow it, thinking it was their mom. Definitely not the reaction your wild hennies had. I wonder where they went?


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## Wyandotter (Dec 13, 2015)

You could build a semi open coop so they don't feel closed up. It could also have branches in it for them to roost just like the trees they roost in.


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## jamesBlackAustralorp (Feb 2, 2017)

Put a dog cave out with string tied to the door and through the cage put feed in it and get them to go in and close the door plus you can get a rooster and they would probably hatch them being wild


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