Last Updated on October 10, 2024 by Alice Benny
Best chicken toys – Keeping chickens is steadily gaining popularity. As useful as they are to us humans, it is important to consider their quality of life too.
Scientists have only begun to touch on the remarkable capabilities that chickens have for feeling emotion and intelligence. Providing fun things for chickens to do will keep them stimulated and happy.
Here are great ways to keep chickens busy. They are all unique and good in their own way. You can get them all or choose one or two. Your chickens will thank you.
Best Chicken Toys
Chickens are very curious by nature and love it when you introduce new objects to them. They would love toys to play with, especially ones designed for them.
Here are some chicken toys proven to entertain and keep your brood busy. The best chicken toys are ones which engage the chickens, keeping them occupied so they won’t peck at each other.
You want to keep them active, engaged, and stress free..
Chicken WARE Chick-N-Veggie Ball
Curb chicken boredom with this commercialized form of hanging a cabbage in your hen yard. This toy will provide tasty, nutritious vegetables and/or fruits for your chickens.
It will enable your girls to get exercise which is ideal for maintaining a healthy flock. It’s best to get the three pack so your hens can all enjoy in the fun.
For certain, you don’t want to create stress and competition around this activity. Buying more than one will help ensure those at the bottom of the pecking order will get to play too.
Chick-N-Veggie Ball features
When you hang this, it keeps the lettuce/cabbage off the ground and out of the dirt. You can also let it roll on the ground, providing different entertainment.
You may choose to do this as a change of pace for your chickens after you change out the bedding.
After a day or two, as the ground gets more soiled, you can go back to hanging it.
If you get two Chick-N-Veggie Balls, you can hang one and leave one on the ground to see what the chickens prefer.
The veggie ball is easy to open and close. It’s quick to refill as needed. It’s sturdy.
And its design gives them hours of playing and snacking.
Being it measures 7 inches in diameter, it easily holds a head of lettuce or cabbage. For variety, you can change it to include zucchini, kale, spinach or stalks of broccoli, etc.
It’s easy to hose off to clean when you are maintaining the rest of the area.
Precision Pet Chicken Treat Ball
This is another treat ball. It’s like the Chick-N-Veggie ball above but this one is only made to hang.
Being it’s smaller, you won’t be able to fit a full head of lettuce or cabbage in it, but it works well for other produce.
And you can easily rip the cabbage leaves off and put them inside. It measures approximately 4 inches in diameter.
Your chickens and ducks will enjoy it with a variety of fruits and vegetables. It works wonderfully with lettuce, spinach, turnip greens, and kale.
It’s made from sturdy, rust resistant metal. There are large gaps in the wiring which allow the chickens to easily access the food.
It has a bell which will also entertain them. The design of the treat ball caters to the chickens’ natural foraging instincts.
There’s a clip and hook so you can position it almost anywhere for easy access. You can keep it in the same location or move it around for them to find.
You may want to get more than one and hang them in different spots for variety. Like the treat ball above, this is great to use when you will be away for several days.
Features of the Precision Pet Chicken Treat Ball
You can easily fill it with healthy snacks and hang it in the coop. It keeps the food clean and gives your ducks and chickens some variety. It works great with apples.
There is a bell attached at the bottom which provides entertainment for chickens.
Provides a challenging feed source and enables them to peck (if you put an apple or carrot in it).
It is durable metal coated with red, rust resistant finish.
Note this will not fit an entire head of lettuce or cabbage.
Again, you can remove the leaves and put them in separately.
Lixit Chicken Toy
Another great way to keep chickens occupied is with the Lixit Chicken Toy — the ultimate in providing action and snacks to your chickens.
It has an easy, pull-apart design to fill with feed, meal worms, or any favorite treats.
Simply put the Lixit in with your chickens and watch as they race to see what is inside.
Depending on the number of chickens you own, you may want to have more than one so they won’t fight over it. Yes, they will love this toy (and the treats) that much!
Lixit Chicken Toy features
Really, you will entertain your chickens as well as yourself watching them have fun with this chicken toy!
- Easy, pull apart design.
- It rolls on the ground.
- It is not meant for hanging.
- The durable material makes it resistant to pecking and inclement weather.
- Great for smaller treats, including meal worms and scratch.
The Chicken Swing – Foul Play Products
If you hang this swing in an area so that it has enough room for free movement, your chickens will delight in this toy.
Some of our older chickens avoided it, but when we started the others young, they’ve enjoyed it until their older age.
Hang it when you have chicks so they are used to it from the beginning.
No matter when you first introduce it to your hens, you should make sure it is lower to the ground. Once they get the swing of it (ha!) you can raise it.
If you have the space, you may want to get two and put them at different heights to see which they use the most. Then you can adjust accordingly.
You will enjoy watching your chickens jump on and off of a swing. It’s fun for them too, and curbs boredom.
If you can find a way for your hens to enjoy this in the cold winter months, this will go a long way toward entertaining them.
The Chicken Swing features
This toy is an exceptionally well-made, colorful product. The perch is plastic, making it easy should you ever need to clean it. It also won’t rot or warp.
Chickens can perch easily on it; it’s shaped like a corn corn. The perch is 16.25″ wide — large enough for your hens. We like this model the best but there are others to consider: Chicken Swing Review. Comparing the Best Chicken Swings
DIY Chicken Toys
If you are handy and creative, you can make all types of chicken toys. Experiment to see what your hens or chicks like.
You can do something as simple as securing fastening a bell to the end of a hanging rope. See what your girls will find engaging!
How to Entertain Chickens
If you want to get creative, you can make your own chicken toys. You can DIY chicken toys from things around your home.
Like the toys you can purchase above, they are inexpensive to create. You can use an onion bag and hang a head of cabbage, allowing chickens to peck at it.
Also, you can build a “food puzzle” out of things the hens will have to move or manipulate in order to reach a treat hiding on the inside.
As an example, you can freeze berries in an ice block. This is a fun activity for the hot summer months and will also help to keep chickens cool.
Chicken enthusiasts have even built DIY chicken swings to allow them some time to exercise and play.
Building an A-frame, otherwise known as a chicken gym, out of some leftover wood and some nails will keep them active and engaged with one another as they climb up and down the rungs.
If you don’t have the room or materials you can build chicken perches as a diversion.
Chickens also love shiny objects. You can put a small mirror — in a shady spot, away from the glare of the sun — in a chicken coop. It will provide hours of enjoyment for curious cluckers.
Consider also a chicken ladder. These are fun toys as well.
Keeping Chickens Occupied
Chickens are capable of recognizing familiar animals and people, and building relationships with them.
Much like humans, they develop close relationships with their mothers. They are capable of communicating with her while still in embryonic form.
Chickens are social creatures, preferring the company of other chickens to being alone. They develop a social hierarchy with those that they spend the most time with.
Entertaining Chickens and Keeping Chickens Busy
It’s important to care for hens and roosters in the best way possible.
We can do this be providing them with good living conditions, including a clean coop, and ways for them to be protected from cold, rain, and the sun. It’s essential they can live safe area from predators.
Also important is that they have access to clean water with a chicken watering system and the right type of food.
Once you meet the basic needs, it’s great if you can give them space. It’s important to give chickens enough space and give them opportunities to move around. Free range chickens are most likely happier.
Chicken Coop Toys
And if you can also give them access to variety and stimulation in the form of chicken toys, that will keep them curious, active and interested.
Ultimately, the goal is to keep them healthy so they can continue to provide eggs and later, high-quality meat.
Thankfully, more and more people are treating chickens better. Many chicken owners value them as pets and as a food source.
Toys for Chickens
Getting your hens the best chicken toys is a way to enrich their experiences and to honor their contributions to our lives.
Some owners grow so attached to their birds that they choose to keep them on as pets rather than solely a food source when they stop laying.
Chicken Toys Relieve Boredom
Chickens who are stimulated and happy with life are calm, curious creatures who do not wish to harm themselves or other animals around them.
When they are not stimulated, however, they tend to act out in frustration and aggression. They will target the weaker members of the flock.
It is a stressful situation for animals and owners alike and should be avoided at all costs.
Finding some DIY chicken projects to provide them stimulation will ensure that you keep animal aggression at bay.
Chickens are active, intelligent animals, and it is up to us as their caretakers to provide a quality of life experience — one that is pleasing for them and joyful for us.
If you have been a regular viewer of America’s Got Talent, you would have seen this in its full effect. There was a chicken in the finals who played the piano!
Providing chickens opportunities to play, socialize, exercise and run will ensure you have done them a service by providing the best life for them.
Raising a flock should be fun for you as well. You provide for them, and in turn, you and your family benefit from their eggs and meat.
Enjoy providing for your girls with these fun chicken toys. How do you keep your chickens happy and occupied? Leave your tips in the comments.
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looking for large wire balls you put chikens in to take them outside of pen like hampsters balls