Maybe your a newbie chicken keeper with teen chicks just old enough for the coop, or have a problem with stubborn chickens sleeping outside. You're not alone. Many people deal with these problems, but not many know an easy way to deal with it.
Lots of chicken keepers train their chickens to go inside at night by repeatedly chasing them in every night for a couple weeks until they catch on, or something similar. The method I use is much easier and less time consuming.
First Things First - Learn the Chicken Ways.
Chickens are creatures of habit. One way I proved it was when I extended my chicken yard. For over two weeks the chickens rarely ventured into the new part of their pen and acted like there was an invisible fence. That being said, act sooner rather than later to prevent your chickens from developing bad sleeping habits.
The natural way for a chicken to sleep is sitting on a roost. Nope, they don't like beds or the ground. Only hens with chicks, injured chickens, and sometimes silkies (if they can't reach the roost) will sleep on the ground. Moral: please provide your chickens roosts to sleep on!
In the wild, a flock of chickens try to get as high off the ground as they can at night, most often in the branches of a tree. They do this to help them stay safe from land predators. What we are trying to do is train the chickens that their coop is a safe place to sleep at night.
I have found that younger chickens, particularly pullets and cockerals, tend to be a little more adventurous and like to try sleeping on top of the coop sometimes (much like human kids and teens). But, younger chickens also adjust much faster than older birds. Older birds (by older I mean about 3+ years of age) are more chill with sleeping in coops, but don't catch on to new things as easily.
Moving on - The Method
How to train them is simple; just lock them in their coop full time for a few days. For young chickens, lock them in for about 3-4 days and for older hens do 5-7.
To do this you need a feeder and waterer in your coop. Chickens need access to fresh water 24/7, and must be fed at least once a day. Or, if you're like me, you can let them have access their feed all day long.
Anyways, lock them in for a few days, and the morning after the lock-in period is over you can let them out. They might not stray to far from the coop at first, but that's okay. Let them range at their own speed.
At night they will go into the coop by themselves!
In The Case of a Stubborn Sleeper
If you have a "stubborn sleeper," you have two options; put her/him in the coop every night yourself, or lock your whole flock in the coop for a couple days to repeat the training. What I do depends on (1) how busy I am, (2) my flock's circumstances, (3) how stubborn the chicken is, and (4) the chicken in general.
My worst case of a stubborn chicken was Bobsled. Her first summer she would always roost in the pear tree, high up. Every night I would climb up, catch her, and set her on the coop roost. After a couple weeks of this, she got to the point where sometimes she would sleep in the coop, sometimes in the tree. I would...er...patiently grab her every night she planned a sleepover and put her in the coop. Near winter she finally gave up and started sleeping in the coop every night by herself.
Bobsled had always liked to fly, from the time she was a chick. Hence her name. She was the wild chick of the batch, and didn't like being locked in the coop. She was the stubbornest chicken I've ever had, and it would have been easier to just repeat the training process with the whole flock. But I thought it through and realized that I had too many chickens to be locked in the coop all day. At the time, I was home a lot and not busy at all. So I chose to bring her in every night. As you can see there, I judged all four points to come to a conclusion.
But most the time, stubborn sleepers can be broken easily. Every year I have one or two pullets who decide to have a campout. By moving them from their outdoor roost and dusk and onto a roost in the coop I can usually break them in just a few days, or should I say nights?
(Falcon and Alex planning a sleepover on top of the coop)
A Few Final Notes
-If you are merging young chickens into an existing flock, be careful locking them in small areas together. For this reason, I have multiple coops. It makes it easy to do the "See But Don't Touch Method" (you can learn more about this here: Introducing New Chickens: Using the “See but don’t touch” Method). But if multiple coops are not an option, just keep a watchful eye on the chickens and make sure they have plenty of room in the coop.
-If a mother hen raises chicks, she will naturally train them to go into the coop at night. And even if your young chickens aren't the chicks of your older hens, I find that young chickens often follow the examples of their elders to some extent.
-In the dark, chickens go blind. They have terrible night vision. That's why I put my stubborn sleepers in the coop at dusk, because they can't resist as much. But I don't like it to be pitch-black, then it's not safe for you or the chicken you are carrying. Another fact you might find useful is that most predators don't come out until late at night.
-I have never tried this method with ducks, geese, quail, or any other type of poultry, but I think it would work. If anybody tries it, please tell me how it goes!
-You might feel frustrated with your stubborn sleepers, but don't give up! Maybe some parts of this method don't work for you...change them! Everybody's flock is different! It will take a bit of practice and mistakes to learn your own way to deal with roosting problems, just be as patient as possible. It'll all turn out okay!
-I hope this article helps you! Wishing you the best of luck!
Lots of chicken keepers train their chickens to go inside at night by repeatedly chasing them in every night for a couple weeks until they catch on, or something similar. The method I use is much easier and less time consuming.
First Things First - Learn the Chicken Ways.
Chickens are creatures of habit. One way I proved it was when I extended my chicken yard. For over two weeks the chickens rarely ventured into the new part of their pen and acted like there was an invisible fence. That being said, act sooner rather than later to prevent your chickens from developing bad sleeping habits.
The natural way for a chicken to sleep is sitting on a roost. Nope, they don't like beds or the ground. Only hens with chicks, injured chickens, and sometimes silkies (if they can't reach the roost) will sleep on the ground. Moral: please provide your chickens roosts to sleep on!
In the wild, a flock of chickens try to get as high off the ground as they can at night, most often in the branches of a tree. They do this to help them stay safe from land predators. What we are trying to do is train the chickens that their coop is a safe place to sleep at night.
I have found that younger chickens, particularly pullets and cockerals, tend to be a little more adventurous and like to try sleeping on top of the coop sometimes (much like human kids and teens). But, younger chickens also adjust much faster than older birds. Older birds (by older I mean about 3+ years of age) are more chill with sleeping in coops, but don't catch on to new things as easily.
Moving on - The Method
How to train them is simple; just lock them in their coop full time for a few days. For young chickens, lock them in for about 3-4 days and for older hens do 5-7.
To do this you need a feeder and waterer in your coop. Chickens need access to fresh water 24/7, and must be fed at least once a day. Or, if you're like me, you can let them have access their feed all day long.
Anyways, lock them in for a few days, and the morning after the lock-in period is over you can let them out. They might not stray to far from the coop at first, but that's okay. Let them range at their own speed.
At night they will go into the coop by themselves!
In The Case of a Stubborn Sleeper
If you have a "stubborn sleeper," you have two options; put her/him in the coop every night yourself, or lock your whole flock in the coop for a couple days to repeat the training. What I do depends on (1) how busy I am, (2) my flock's circumstances, (3) how stubborn the chicken is, and (4) the chicken in general.
My worst case of a stubborn chicken was Bobsled. Her first summer she would always roost in the pear tree, high up. Every night I would climb up, catch her, and set her on the coop roost. After a couple weeks of this, she got to the point where sometimes she would sleep in the coop, sometimes in the tree. I would...er...patiently grab her every night she planned a sleepover and put her in the coop. Near winter she finally gave up and started sleeping in the coop every night by herself.
Bobsled had always liked to fly, from the time she was a chick. Hence her name. She was the wild chick of the batch, and didn't like being locked in the coop. She was the stubbornest chicken I've ever had, and it would have been easier to just repeat the training process with the whole flock. But I thought it through and realized that I had too many chickens to be locked in the coop all day. At the time, I was home a lot and not busy at all. So I chose to bring her in every night. As you can see there, I judged all four points to come to a conclusion.
But most the time, stubborn sleepers can be broken easily. Every year I have one or two pullets who decide to have a campout. By moving them from their outdoor roost and dusk and onto a roost in the coop I can usually break them in just a few days, or should I say nights?
(Falcon and Alex planning a sleepover on top of the coop)
A Few Final Notes
-If you are merging young chickens into an existing flock, be careful locking them in small areas together. For this reason, I have multiple coops. It makes it easy to do the "See But Don't Touch Method" (you can learn more about this here: Introducing New Chickens: Using the “See but don’t touch” Method). But if multiple coops are not an option, just keep a watchful eye on the chickens and make sure they have plenty of room in the coop.
-If a mother hen raises chicks, she will naturally train them to go into the coop at night. And even if your young chickens aren't the chicks of your older hens, I find that young chickens often follow the examples of their elders to some extent.
-In the dark, chickens go blind. They have terrible night vision. That's why I put my stubborn sleepers in the coop at dusk, because they can't resist as much. But I don't like it to be pitch-black, then it's not safe for you or the chicken you are carrying. Another fact you might find useful is that most predators don't come out until late at night.
-I have never tried this method with ducks, geese, quail, or any other type of poultry, but I think it would work. If anybody tries it, please tell me how it goes!
-You might feel frustrated with your stubborn sleepers, but don't give up! Maybe some parts of this method don't work for you...change them! Everybody's flock is different! It will take a bit of practice and mistakes to learn your own way to deal with roosting problems, just be as patient as possible. It'll all turn out okay!
-I hope this article helps you! Wishing you the best of luck!
