Chickens Roosting During Day?

greenbeandreams

Songster
10 Years
Aug 29, 2009
103
0
109
San Francisco Peninsula
Newbie here. My chickens are 15 weeks old and have taken to roosting in the coop the last couple days. We just finished off a couple weeks of rain - during which they spent more and more time in the coop but down on the floor. Yesterday and today, we've actually had sun and the run is drying out. Yet, they've hardly come out of the coop. Even less than when it was raining. I would have thought, at a minimum, they would sun themselves in the sun that comes through the coop window as they've done on previous days. Instead, they're up on the roost in the middle of the morning! Any thoughts? Should I be worried?

Thanks in advance.
 
I don't think there's anything to be worried about. My girls go in and out of their roost box (where their perch is) all the time. They nap for a while, then come out and scratch around, then nap, etc. Your girls are probably just waiting for things to dry out a little more and resting up to get ready for a full (dry) day of scratching around and playing. Good luck.
 
Oh good! Thank you. I've been such a worry wort with these girls.
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My chickens rarely enter the coop during the day, except for egglaying. However during the day, especially in the winter, they do find a place to snuggle down for an afternoon siesta.
 
Mine napped on the roosts all through the very cold weather, any time it's windy, and sometimes the day after either of those things (I think they get scared or just forget they can go out).

In that respect, they're just like me. I'd much rather be in bed in that kind of weather.
 
Mine roost almost everyday -- even in the summer. Not in their coop, necessarily, but in their favorite lilac bush
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They are free-range and they forage all morning and then usually in the mid-afternoon they can be found napping in the bush before heading back out for more grub in the late afternoon and evening.
 
I open the doors to the coop in the morning and the hens will go out into the my yard and range (roosters are locked up) pick at scratch, go across the back yard and do a dust bath under the big shed, and just generally wander all over the yard. They go in and get on the roosts in the evening, but during the day they go in and out of the coop to scratch in the straw, or just to make holes in it and take little naps on the floor. They lay in the nesting boxes, but nap on the floor. They don't get on the roost in the daytime.

They go out in the rain, and in the snow...all we have here normally is a few flurries once in awhile but I've noticed they don't like the wind. When it is really windy they will stay in the coop a lot more. When it is raining really hard, I just don't let them out.
Terry in TN
 

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