Since you already us the natural wood for the roosts, I’ve seen people make a ramp out of branches.
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I don't think you need to lower the roosts.Never thought of those ramps as toe breakers but now that you mention it I could see how that could be a risk. They all use them with no problem yet but they were only supposed to be a temporary solution for our lack of wood at the time as we normally use them for non chicken purposes.
The length of the front roost is 113 inches and the back is 78. The space between them is 19 inches. We have 8 hens and one rooster. We are currently extending the front of the poop board so that if they still decide to roost off the front as they have been they won’t get pooped on as much. The ones who actually do use the roosts all face forwards so their poop goes to the back.
Trying to decide if we should lower the front roost now that there’s going to be more of a ledge in the front to help them get up. Posted a pic of the progress. About to add side ledges, bottom supports, sand to the front and a ramp. Always appreciate your help. Thanks.
I don't think you need to lower the roosts.
19" between is good, better to leave them at the same level.
If your coop is big enough to fly down without crashing you may not even needs those ramps.
Board looks to be about 3' high? They can fly up there easy.
Not sure how the front extension of board will help, but maybe it will.
Since you already us the natural wood for the roosts, I’ve seen people make a ramp out of branches.
Plus it is free! Other than the screws you may already have.That‘s a great idea. Would give them a nice grip without hurting their toes too. I like it. Thanks!
Maybe the other hens are keeping them from joining them and they settle for a lower position. I had to put them up on the roost for two months before the issue was settled. My husband came up with the idea of two ladders instead of one. Yep, with one ladder a chicken would block the way and keep the others from coming up.
Hi, I have large breed birds also and also have three large for their 20 weeks of age Black: Lavender Orpingtons. My husband built our coop this year with our flock of nine being our first. So the roost bar/poop boards thing we debated over awhile along with the deep litter method etc along with all the rest of the stuff. So I had my roost bars in for several weeks and now as it got closer to their laying time we have added their nest boxes and decided to add the poop boards now so that the roost boards are a little higher than the nest boxes and the way we made the nest boxes we have lids that we can leave up all the time or we can close them at our leisure. So we leave them open right now with some fake eggs in there to help them figure things out and not sleep in the nest boxes hopefully or poop on them either and we raised the original roost boards higher by about a foot and then out in a poop board. On day three which was last night of the poop board I had gone in and done a really good coop cleaning on Thursday and really cleaned the roost and poop boards really good putting in PDZ on the roost and poop boards and in the coop as well as adding shavings and removing some poop from the coop so they tend to snoop when I spruce up the coop for them. So last night they got caught snooping and piddling and then it got dark on them and the big girls couldn’t see to jump up on the roost board or fly correctly so they just hopped upstairs on the poop board because it was practically spotless from my cleaning because it’s covered with linoleum. I even had cleaned out Thursday so it was clean really good. So they were asleep by the time I came to lock up and I just picked them up and put them on the real roost boards because I didn’t want them to be pooped On. By the time I got to number three they were fully awake but they got over the fact that I rousted then from their slumber. They were already really snoozing too by 7:30. But if I had not moved them they would have been in a real mess. Now tonight they were fine when I went in to lock them up tonight and everyone was up on the high roost but I believe that once the Orpingtons get fully grown you will have to be careful of sprains. Your roost looks sort of high and I think you could drop it down a good bit and remove your poop boards and those ramps altogether. I will attach a picture of my roost with no poop board under it. The white stuff you see is just the linoleum that we need tacked better on the wall. It is now but I haven’t taken anymore pics yet. Sorry. But you get the gist.That would be a simple solution. Will be trying. Thanks for your help!