Chicken won’t go in hen house at night

[Jrios58]

Thanks for your insight but I love them. They will lay me delicious eggs but I’ll never eat them. What I’m getting at is that if they were just food then I might try locking them up but I don’t want to ruin our bond by doing that.

I wish mine would let me pet them!

 

[seraphine]

if I were a chicken I wouldn't want to go in there... it looks like a trap. I have wire sides so they can see out if they want and in winter (so california) I put layers of blankets over the wire areas. There's two houses with a wire tunnel connection. in winter the only part without blankets in the tunnel pass through

 

[WallyG74]

Put a light on a timer, that comes on for about an hour each night. ( Right now. Mine comes on around 9pm) you will be amazed that they go in by themselves!

So I don’t have a fancy timer, but I plugged my brooder light up 2 nights in a row right before dark. The 2nd night (tonight) they were all in the brooder waiting for me to close the hole and make them secure for the night. Thanks for the suggestion, it worked perfectly! As soon as they are closed up, I unplug the light. Yay!

 

[jstiffey]

Can they get off the floor in coop our variety of birds all haave to be off the floor except a couple of older layers

 

[Bear1978]

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again.. Chickens are so weird! Lol

 

[Mary Jo S]

My flock on average are 70 days old. There are 12 of them and at night they huddle out side the hen house and I have to pick each one up every night to put to bed about 9pm. They aren’t afraid of the house. It’s completely predator proof and they go in and out all day long. They are getting heavy and I don’t know how to get them to go in by themselves.

I had a similar problem and the suggestion was to put a flashlight in the coop. I used a battery operated light th

My flock on average are 70 days old. There are 12 of them and at night they huddle out side the hen house and I have to pick each one up every night to put to bed about 9pm. They aren’t afraid of the house. It’s completely predator proof and they go in and out all day long. They are getting heavy and I don’t know how to get them to go in by themselves.

My flock on average are 70 days old. There are 12 of them and at night they huddle out side the hen house and I have to pick each one up every night to put to bed about 9pm. They aren’t afraid of the house. It’s completely predator proof and they go in and out all day long. They are getting heavy and I don’t know how to get them to go in by themselves.
put a light in the coop, they should start going in toward the light. i used a battery operated light with a timer. i did this and they went in the first night I did it. I used the light for about 2 weeks and they now put themselves to bed right before dusk.

 

[Mary Jo S]

I spent 4 days chasing them at dusk and then I put a temporary light in mine, just ran an extension cord. Had it on a timer for 15 min before sunset to 15 after. They learned in 1 day. They were afraid to go in the dark and wanted to stay out in the light longer. Give it a try.

that worked for me too

 

[Ann With A Plan]

I'm not a chicken whisperer, either, but

So are you putting them in before dark, or after dark? If you get them in before it gets dark, then they should get used to settling down to sleep inside.

I can think of two ways to get them in:

Put something tasty inside, then shut them in when they go in to eat.

"Something tasty" might just be their usual food with some water added--chickens seem to really like it that way.

Or herd them in. Just walk toward them, so they walk away from you--and keep steering them toward the doorway. Then shut them in.

If they're so tame they'll stand still and get stepped on, herding won't work. But as long as they're willing to move a little away, it does work. No need to run and chase, you just want them to wander calmly the correct direction.

This is what I did from the beginning. After they graduated from the baby box I put them in a "dog crate" inside the coop. I let them out of the crate and they stayed inside the coop until I was able to get fencing up. As my avatar shows, I have a door in front, which is blocked at bottom with wood. The sides go up and down (up at night). Once the fencing was up I left the coop door wide open so they can go back in there anytime (if they're scared they all run back inside, or when it rains). Between 8-8:30 they all start working their way back inside and onto their roost. One time they were all outside because they were excited about something, so I did have to herd them inside.

They are able to see outside of the top half of the door. I thought that was important for them to at least be able to see a little bit. Maybe it's too dark for yours to see inside?

 

[chicksneedhelp]

My flock on average are 70 days old. There are 12 of them and at night they huddle out side the hen house and I have to pick each one up every night to put to bed about 9pm. They aren’t afraid of the house. It’s completely predator proof and they go in and out all day long. They are getting heavy and I don’t know how to get them to go in by themselves.

 

[chicksneedhelp]

My little chicks did the same, and would break out and go to the downstairs part of the coop that just had hardware cloth. Some got wet from rain and died of hypothermia. I got a few more and one accidentally turned out to be a roo. He always made sure the girls went to bed and sat in the door to guard them.