New Chickens

[smauck24]

I have raised chickens for the last 3-4 years and I added to my flock this past May and all of them are of good size and some are laying now. The only problem I have is the new flock wants to stay in the run at night on top of a crate instead of going into the coop. With winter approaching soon, this concerns me. I have a whole separate small coop that I raise my chicks in and i always close it off when they get to good size to join the older flock. My 10 Buffs I got last year went into coop the same day I closed the little coop up. The first night i tried making the cage not an option, bad idea,half of them went and tried hiding out in the garden and would of been left vulnerable to whatever. The last 2 nights, I have been moving them into the coop hoping to get them use to it. They use the coop to lay their eggs, but all except maybe 3 are staying outside in the run. Any thoughts on this situation would be greatly appreciated.

 

[azygous]

The way you train chickens to something new is to make the old as unappealing as possible while using repetition to teach them the new thing.

To further explain this principle, you need to create impediments so the chickens can't roost where you do not want them. You need to place them in the new coop every night until they finally get the habit.