Our chickens aren't too bright

[Joshie]

Our chickens were a year old in May. We've always kept them in a horse stall. They've never free ranged before. For the last week or so we've taken them outside. Most don't really go outside unless we carry them out. It's far easier to get them inside than outside. Instead of eating a lot of bugs and grass they seem to stay in the hay side of the barn. We carry them over there because they were staying in a storage part of the barn and we don't want them to poop all over that part of the barn.

When we take them in for the day they mob the feeder as if they've never eaten in their whole lives. They are not far from the garden but have never ventured near it. The stinkin' cats cause more problem in the garden than the chickens do.

Any idea how to encourage them to stay outside and start eating all our bugs? The boys are in the dry lot right now because it's been storming a lot and the dry lot was turning into another pasture. When we take them back into the pasture we might take the chickens there to start eating the bugs. Should we cover the trough since the girls don't seem to be the brightest bulbs in the box?

I need to take a video of Mama. She just does her little chicken waddle to run towards us. She never was a friendly bird until we let her raise her baby. When we took baby away she decided to follow us around everywhere we go. She's now our best bird and has turned into the flock leader. This is wonderful because Jerk Face was an awfully mean leader.

[WildernesFamily]

Give them time, they'll get more adventurous. When we first let ours out they stayed very close to the run. If they spotted anything even remotely threatening they all went running back into the "safety" of the run. Each day they ventured a little further and now they roam everywhere.

If you give them scratch etc. they will get more used to pecking at things on the ground and doing a bit of foraging. Again, they'll get better at it, given a bit of time