Chickens just have to get the feeling. My last bunch would not go out of the coop for a couple of days. They would stand in the the door and look out. Once they were brave enough to go out, they would not got back into the coop at night. They slept on the porch on the coop in a heap.
They did this until they were old enough the blend with the flock in the adjacent coop that had a run parallel to theirs with a common fence.
When I opened the door between the runs, no one would venture into the other area for almost an entire day. The days after the common door was opened, the new chickens would get on the porch of their coop at night and sleep in a heap.
Over time, they got to be too large to sleep on their porch. (It was quite narrow) They moved to the other flock's coop and slept on the porch of that coop. That porch is much wider.
I noticed that they were spending less and less time around their coop, and more and more time around the old flock's coop. Soon they got too big to sleep on that porch and moved inside the old flock's coop. They slept on the floor in a heap for a time, then decided to move up onto the roosts with the other chickens.
Eventually, it dawned on me that no one was going into the new coop. I closed it off and use it for storage. All the chickens sleep in the same coop. I had to add more roost space.
Chickens can be slow to change, but be quite entertaining in the meantime.
Chris
