I am not a chicken expert by any means. However, after owning them as a child and then again as an adult, I have learned a few helpful things! I am going to share two great ways to train your chickens. First, I will teach you one way how to tame them and have friendly chickens. Second, I will teach you one way to get them to go into their coop when you want them to.

#1 Train your chickens to be friendly.

When I was growing up, my family raised chickens for eggs. I remember there was a learning curve for my parents. They joked that the first dozen eggs was very expensive! Our chickens were not free range and they didn’t produce eggs until we provided them with oyster shell. My parents didn’t know that the hens needed calcium to make eggs.

I am thankful that when my own family got our first chickens, we knew that they needed calcium. My three little girls were so excited about the baby chicks that they named each one and handled them daily. It was by accident that by daily handling, the chicks grew to be very friendly chickens. Now, we did not have any roosters. Also, some breeds are known for being friendly than other breeds. We had ISA Browns and Barred Rocks. The ISA Browns were noticeably friendly. They are a bit smaller than Barred Rocks so perhaps it has something to do with the pecking order -which we learned is a real thing!

Because of how tame our first batch of hens were, we intentionally handled our next baby chicks which were a mix Rhode Island Red and Australorp chickens. They are also very tame.

So, train hens to be friendly by handling them often when they are young.

#2 Train Your Chickens to go into the Coop

I believe that we also learned this second trick by accident. When we first got our chickens, we put them in at night. (Since then, we realized that they do that them when it gets dark. Our yard has been very safe from predators, and we don’t think it is necessary to close the door at night.) But, in the beginning, I would clap my hands and call “Yeah!” each time we wanted them to go in. At first we had to shew them in or actually pick them up. It did not take many days of this for the hens to figure out that clapping and “Yeah!” meant it was time to go in. My girls and I proudly showed off to my husband who was very impressed!

So, train your chickens to go in by practicing a similar routine daily. 

Here’s an affordable bag of oyster shell if your chickens need some calcium!

How bout you? Are there any chicken tips that you learned by experience? Please share them!