Chicken ark- the girls keep roosting in the side nest boxes!

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chick4chix

chick4chix

Songster
11 Years
Jun 4, 2009
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So Cal
Does anyone have any tips keeping the girls out of the nest boxes at night in an ark? I blocked them out until this week because they are getting close to the age where they may be laying- as soon as I opened them up- they started roosting in there. I have to go out after dark -open the nest box and gently insist they go back onto the roost. IT is really funny though because all 6 chickens will be in one nest box!
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I have exactly the same problem. Here's my pic.
37043_dscf5107.jpg

As you can see... 1. the roosts are higher than the nest boxes. 2. They are made of 2x4's except for the one section at the front. I have 4 Easter Eggers who roost up there (on the 2x2 section ~ go figure) in the front left hand corner every night. But my 5 Barnevelders (who are a week older) insist on scrounging around in the bedding material on the front right corner of the coop just in front of the nest boxes or trying to roost on the 2x2 in front of the nest boxes with their faces squished up against the wall.

As you can see, I currently have the nest boxes covered so they can't sleep in there. (They are only 17 weeks old... no sign of egg laying behaviour yet).

So.... I'd like them sleeping on the roost before they start laying. Ideas...?
 
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Maybe they feel more secure at night in the nest boxes.

What is the width of your roost? If it's smaller than the wide side of a 2 x 4, maybe they don't like having to grip something all night and prefer to lay down and snuggle in all cozy and comfy.

I first put in a 1 x 4" ladder style roost and they prefered the shaving on the floor.

Put in a left over piece of plywood that's 4 ft long, 6 inches wide. They LOVE it. At first they would crowd on top of each other to be close to the window. With the warmer weather, they are all spread out and hunker down over their feet. More of their body rests on the roost.

Down side to wider roost is it does get poo on it that I scrape into my bucket every morning.
 
I was having the same problem with my ark, and had to block my nest boxes off for almost a month. I think it finally worked, I had opened it back up and one was still doing it, so I did it another night, and then changed the shavings out and used a cat litter box as a liner. I also turned one nest box into a "bath" box using a cat litter box full of sand/DE/dirt, and this seems to have worked. I was worried too because they are close to egg laying, but no eggs
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Maybe this will work for you, or maybe someone elso will have another idea
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I have the same problem, as soon as I opened it up the nest boxes they started sleeping in the nest boxes. Only 2 of my 4 girls are laying and it seems like the ones that arn't laying are the ones that keep sleeping in the nest box. Here is what I did.

I increased the size of the roost from 2X2 to 2X4 and made it more stable.

I raised the roost 4 inches so it is a little higher than the nest boxes but this is as high as I can raise it because of the height of the Ark.

I block the nest boxes at night and open them up in the morning. This is not a problem since I get up at 5:30 am for work. I will probably keep doing this until the other 2 girls start laying eggs.

the other morning one of my nest box blocker was not secure, probalby because I was to hasty and was getting eaten alive by mosquitos!
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And sure enough someone was sleeping in it.
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and pooped in the nest box.
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I have a feeling I'm going to be doing for at least a month.
 
I had to block my nest boxes at night...to train them that they were not for roosting...in the daytime I would open them up...after about a week...they learned.
 
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I am suspicious that your problem may be the unconventional setup of the roost, with all the extra lumber around. They may have trouble getting *up* there (especially once one or two are already there), and/or they may be perching on the connecting pieces and having collisions and Social Interactions.

If it were me, I would try removing all that, and replacing it with one long roost going the long dimension of the coop. If one end would need to attach to that openable door the photo is taken thru, you can put a short dropper down from above to attach the roost to on that end, kind of like you already have. But otherwise lose all the connecting wood. If one roost is not enough space for all the birds, you can have two, but make them as far from each other as possible (even if it's at the expense of maybe being a wee bit too close to the walls), but again, with nothing connecting them to each other.

Are those blocked-up holes each nestboxes? It might also be easier to keep hens from roosting in the boxes if there weren't so *many* of them -- with 9 hens you only need 2-3 nestboxes, really.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
Wow- thanks for all the suggestions and help- I tried to upload a photo of the ark so you could see what I'm talking about but can't seem to get it to come on this message page.
I have photos on my other page though- the ark is just like the Catawba Ark - the roost is a 2"x2" board with rounded edges. It sits about 4" from the dropping board- because I wanted them to have head room.
Would a 2"x4" be a better roost with the flat side up? I could raise it some too- maybe they don't need the head room at night??
I put hay in the nest boxes- they seem to be favoring one over the other for their night time sleeping - all 6 of them jam on top of each other in there- you'd think they would suffocate! I start lifting them off one by one and putting them back through the hole towards the roost and they whisper and wheeze and softly whistle at me for bothering them - but if I don't stand there- they will come right back in the nest- I have to wait till they are all settled again before I close the hatch.
Thanks again for all the advice- BYC ROCKS!!
 
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Oh- I think I figured this out- (loading photos here) here is the outside photo- it's 4'x8' across the bottom and I'll show a picture when it was in the framing stage so you can see the inside area where the nests are.




The triangular area on both ends are the two nest boxes and there is a 1/2 wall between the roost area and the nest area to make it more private and cozy
 
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