This is still something that myself and the OH are working on. We have currently succeeded in doing so to about a distance of 6". Any more than that, and the girls are magically outside the door before you can say 'mealworms'. The problem is not that the door squeaks (which it does, a bit) more the fact that it moves. Which is something that doors are supposed to do, so unless house manufacturers some up with some kind of security system that houseowners can walk through and chickens can't we are going to have to continue with working out how to let air in the house without letting the chickens in at the same time.
The thing is, as soon as the door opens, the girls spring into action. There must be something inside a chicken's brain from birth that alerts them immediately a door opens. I know that it is not just something special to our girls because friends who have chickens experience exactly the same thing. They seem to think that when the door opens, they are going to get some kind of food/treat/free pass inside. It doesn't matter where in the garden they are or what other noises there are outside, they can still hear it. Once I simply turned the handle a fraction and I was suddenly faced with four chickens lining up outside the door.
We did consider the idea of a stable door at one point. The problem is, chickens can also jump (except Baked who is a bit fat at the moment) and so that would mean that we would end up with four chickens lined up on top of the bottom half of the door. This would be quite cute, but also opens up lots of new possibilities for them like jumping from there onto the shelf where the TV is. Since Fried has already broken a pot by jumping onto the bottom shelf from the floor, I dread to think what it would do to the TV.
I think it might be time to bring that air conditioner unit down from the spare room so we can stay cool and the chickens can stay outside ...
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