CGPS

Did you know that all hens come fully equipped with a Chicken Global Positioning System, otherwise known as CGPS? Yes, indeed!

The CGPS comes with a highly accurate search capability. For example, the hen thinks “raspberries,” and in no time at all she finds the site!

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The CGPS is linked to every member of the flock, so that all individuals can meet at the location.

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Once the site is found, the coordinates are never lost or forgotten.

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There is no limit to the number of locations that the CGPS can download and store. This flock’s database is soon to be expanded to include the search for grapes.  What’s in your chicken’s CGPS?

Comments:

  1. I love your writing! You have a gift. My CGPS has blueberries and figs. And the lettuce /kale patch.

  2. Ha! My flocks CGPS has kale, 2 cat food bowls in the kitchen (they try to sneak in behind my cat when she comes in), currants, rhubarb, and the strawberry patch.

  3. By a weird and comical twist of fate, my Dad’s car is on our CGPS. He came back from a long drive during summer, aka Flying Bug season, which resulted in dead bugs all over the exterior of the car. One hen found the bugs, and suddenly all the hens were on the car… and they never forgot the car. They now stand and poop (Dad is not a happy camper) all over the one car in search of dead bugs when it’s left out in the open. ;)

    • Too funny! I`m afraid it that happened to my husband`s precious car the Chickens days would be numbered. They do like to hang out in his shop as the door leading into where i store their feed and treats is there. That goes over like a lead balloon and much shooing(polite way of saying cursing) goes on.

    • You must have particularly juicy and large bugs in Australia. The ones on my car are too flat and dried out to be of any interest to the hens.

      • Actually this was in the States, during a rather nasty grasshopper/locust infestation. They DO … stick to everything on high impact.. ehem. O.o The hens were thrilled.

    • That’s one laugh-out-loud word picture there, Kristine!
      In answer to your original question, Terry, my hens gather round the outside of the fruit cage when I’m doing my daily blueberry and red/white/black currant harvesting! They also tap incessantly on the glass of the greenhouse trying to reach the tomatoes. Needless to say, they end up having all the rejects anyway! ;-)

  4. CGPS- too funny.
    My girls CGPS is locked on the area under the bird feeder. They run there first thing looking for spilled seed.

  5. My hen knows where we store our feed. It under the porch in a big sealed container. She stands on top of it and waits for us to come out and give her a handful. The others haven’t caught on yet, but they will soon!

  7. Too cute! Mine is the haystack..lots of goodies hiding under the stacks of hay!

  8. Mine have their favorite hangouts programmed in…Plum Alley, Collard Corner, Kale Square, and Jupiter’s Beard Way. Their absolutely favorite spot is the kitchen porch where, invariably, The Mark (aka me) will come out with pellet “treats” and maybe some cantaloupe seeds. The Mark is a moving location but their CGPS is very sophisticated and they can always find it.

  9. Help! My only CGPS is the compost in their run. I’m too afraid to let them out to free-range because of the many predators in our area. The hawks sit on the telephone wires and watch my hens all day long. Hoping to build a tractor soon.. Just completed the coop and run today. It only took all summer. Hubby did a great job!

  12. As soon as I open the store cabinet they are at my feet. They know the treats are in there even though most times I am getting gloves or cleaning items. They pile at me just in case!

  13. This entry and all the hysterical comments made me laugh out loud. Thanks to all of you for expressing this so vividly!!

  14. Last evening when I let mine out for a little free range four pullets took off at a sprint Carl Lewis would be envious of, I thought were in the world could they possibly be going in such a hurry?
    I watched, RASPBERRY BUSH. ;-)

    I hadn’t been over in that part of the yard in a few days and didn’t know they had started to ripen. My hens will not eat them until they ripen. How about your hens Terry?

  15. My four girls have CGPS for cherry tomatoes and low hanging butternut squash, but it fails them when they need to find each other. Whenever one is separated from the small flock she screams, as in the “I’m being attacked by HAWKS” scream. I used to think they were just announcing an egg but it fails to accompany an egg often enough to convince me that they just lose each other and freak out. The screaming stops when I show up and lead them to the group, which barely looks up from foraging.

      • I also have one. A bantam -and if she losses sight of the rest of the flock or me its a crazy caterwauling that begins then she runs on her little tiny feet to get back with the group. So comical as she only weighs 23 ounces! So I guess her cgps might be on the fritz sometimes

  17. Back in the 1980s my late parents and I had a very large barred rock rooster I’d rescued from a pet store at Easter when he was a baby chick over-handled by the customers.  My elderly parents doted on him (and our old neighbor lady did, too.) He rewarded them for eight years with humor and companionship. Although an outdoor chicken, he would sometimes make his way into the kitchen, and his CGPS led him directly to the refrigerator! (He was fond of peas and shredded cheese.)  He couldn’t reach or use the handle but figured out that if he grabbed hold of the towel on the handle and yank, he’d get attention and sometimes it would actually open.  We’d open it to see what he would do, and it was hilarious to see him nonchalantly reach up on his toes and inspect the shelves one by one for something interesting. It wasn’t always the food he was interested in but the objects and packaging that were fun to peck at and pull out that attracted him. We accidentally left a back door open once, and he found his way into a bathroom, grabbed the end off a roll of toilet paper and ran down the hall with it streaming out behind him. He had a great old time.

      • He was an only chicken. If he hadn’t been a rescue we would not have acquired a chicken as much as my parents loved chickens, birds and other animals. We lived in a town that did not allow roosters, but the local Humane Officer allowed him unless someone complained and no one did. We also had our hands full with three rescue terriers that we had to keep separate from him as he terrorized them. Oddly, we never gave him a name–never thought of anything that was significant enough. So it was just “Chick”. My favorite photo of him was sitting on the back of my 80-something year old mother’s recliner, a daily habit, as she watched her favorite afternoon soap opera (with a towel on the floor under him. He was a very clean bird.) I’d catch them sleeping, leaning against each other. He was such a distraction from her daily aches and pains. I am sure he did not know what a chicken was.

  19. Loved this, Terry!
    All we have to do is pick up our small pitch fork and the flock comes running! Their CGPS must be tied into that pitch fork! They know that whatever we churn over in the dirt will be far less work than their scratching and pecking. Sometimes they even stand right on top of the pile we’re trying to shovel! Too funny. We call them our lazy (spoiled!) hens.

    • Me too. As soon as I go into the run with the fork the girls gather round. They know when I dig the run over there will be worms and I have to be so careful. They stand on the fork and fall into any holes I dig and I have to take super care not to catch their feet. They get right on top of the fork and have no fear, just pure excitement at what I may turn up for them.

    • My bantam white leghorns have always been the lazy (clever?) ones. While the others are hard at work foraging, the bantams come over to where I’m gardening and wait for me to toss them tidbits.

  20. Beatrix is in nesting box, looks like she’s straining to lay her egg!!!! Yayyy