chicken preferences when it comes to henhouses

lilmillefleur

chillin' with my peeps!
8 Years
Oct 3, 2015
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My dad built a lovely coop a few years ago and had to expand it due to chicken math...instead of one hen house he built two for the girls. One is a bit smaller than the other. The larger one has a window that faces an open field, and our house. The smaller hen house has a window facing the opposite direction, towards the woods. We noticed that most of the chickens preferred the larger hen house over the smaller one. The chicken at the bottom of the pecking order could have gone into the smaller hen house which has around three hens in it while the other 8 took the bigger one, but instead that hen slept on a perch outside the hen house(but still safely secure in the coop, just in the 'run' area). So i am wondering if more chickens refuse to sleep in the smaller hen house because they do not like that the window faces the woods where there may be foxes? Or do they all just cram into the larger one because they like to sleep together?
 
Who knows how chickens think. I have two identical 2 by 4's in my coop, same length, same height. Only difference is they are on opposite sides of the coop and one side has a window. The one roost they won't use at all. As for the roost they like, apparently only half of it is good. So they will pile up on top of each other, 13 hens trying to roost in 3 1/3 feet. It's insane to watch them in the evening trying to get settled.

To try to answer your question, chickens do tend to want to stay together. However, as in my coop, windows make a difference. Might be the same with yours.
 

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