chicken ramp and roost help please!

[TeamChaos]

Hello! I converted a trailer to my chicken coop and it's proving pretty hard to make the majority of the space useable. All 26 chickens fight for space in three small cubbies that are located above what used to be the stove/sink island. There's a beautiful bunk roost, but no one wants it- instead they all crowd on to the ladder that leads up to the bunk. I'd like to connect all of the levels by ramp but the angles will be pretty steep and, so far, my ramps have just been ladders with a hardware cloth backing (so chickens can't fall through)- am I going about this all wrong?

 

[Suechick]

Some pictures might be helpful.

Are your chickens pretty young? I would think younger ones would like cubbies and older ones would like to roost. However, chickens will tend to roost in the highest possible location that they can reach. So if the cubbies are up high they will go for them, and if your roosts are lower, the chickens will ignore them. I'd suggest gutting out some of the inside and making sure you have lots of nice high roost space.

It sounds like you have a big project there. Good luck with it.

 

[midget_farms]

Sounds like you are doing OK - but no one has ever figured out what makes a chicken do what it does.

Young birds & very large birds will not go up very high. They just can't.

Steep ramps look like walls to a chicken so they have to be pretty motivated to try to go up one.

Try going out well after dark & moving them by hand onto the roost you want them to use. I've heard that if you do this for a couple weeks they eventually catch on.

As for me - I let them decide for themselves where they want to sleep - most are on the roost - some are under the roost (yuck).

 

[teach1rusl]

Personally, I would get rid of or block any "cubbies" except for nest boxes if yours are old enough for egg laying. Normally, I like elevated nest boxes. But it sounds as if your guys would roost in them, so I'd put then down low, with your roosts up high. I would also get rid of anything table-like unless it's dropping boards beneath your roosting bars; they're going to do nothing but collect a LOT of poop. Do you have a lot of roosting bars (2 x 4s and such) placed about??? I agree that pictures would help a lot.