Chicken happiness

What does a chicken need to make it happy? Mian had told me once that a human needs three things to make him or her happy- a home, work, and love. Let's assume that it works the same way for chickens.

I want to take that as a guideline to see how the chickens fare in their coop.

Home: They are definitely more secure in their coop than outside. Outside, in the last three years, they have been attacked by vultures, pine martens, jackals, dogs, and the neighbour's evil cat. Their coop is secure. While it doesn't have the cross-ventilation I would like, it is fairly well ventilated with two windows facing east and north (and I keep the door open during the day). Since we have a breeze from the east most days, it means they have adequate fresh air. It is also quite roomy with our present flock. It does stay a few degrees hotter than outside; I manage this by watering down the walls and the floor on the hottest afternoons

Their coop. Roomy, and sunlight hits the back wall in the morning

Work: I will take this to mean their feeding and foraging. We follow a deep litter system, and I scatter plenty of 'scratch' seed in the morning. Also, I add the remains of fruit processing to the litter, which attracts insects .So there is quite a lot of scratching going on there, which also helps keep the litter (and droppings) turned and aerated. I also feed them in the mornings and evenings.The problem is water. Their water bowl was always outside under a tree, they don't drink from it when it is inside. I try and counter this by giving them watery foods- which they enjoy.

I am concerned that they miss out on greens except during the time they are out foraging. So most mornings I tie up a bunch of the greens they like (goosefoot, shepherd's purse, amaranth) and hang it up in the coop.The bugs they only get when they are out foraging, unless some poor insect enters the coop.

Eating their greens. Note the smart one making an aerial assault.

 Love: Or rather, sex. They don't mate when inside the coop. I don't know  why. So now friskiness happens only during the scheduled free-ranging time. And anyway, not much happens when you have four roosters. One barely manages to climb onto a willing hen before the other three come and knock him off. No wonder we only got two chicks from a clutch of ten.

And I will add one more which is

Health: Temperature control, ventilation and food we manage. The problem is dustbathing. Even though I let them out morning and evening, they don't dustbathe during those hours. I have noticed that they like to do it when the sun is out, and so very often they get an additional outing so that they can dustbathe. I am a little worried about mites. One solution I have read is to scatter wood ash in the litter. I have tried that, and found myself inhaling more ash than I would like to when it came time to turn and collect the litter. So that's out. Regular sunny outings and a limewash to the walls is all I can think of, will keep an eye on them.

Morning outing time. The bare patch in the background is where they love to sun themselves.

So that's what we do for chicken happiness. Does it work? Well, yesterday I forgot to round them up and put them in after their morning outing. When I went, they had already put themselves into the coop. I think they don't mind it too much.