Chickens roosting outside in winter

[Catharinejo]

Every night 4 or 5 of our bantams huddle together on this board to roost outside. I adjusted the branch I have inside the coop as a roost thinking maybe they didn’t like that it wiggled and that was why they didn’t want to sleep inside. I have moved them in to the coop a couple times to try to encourage them to sleep inside but it doesn’t seem to work. We are in Kansas and haven’t had terrible weather yet BUT I’m worried they’ll try to sleep outside when we do! So, please answer my dumb question- do I need to worry about this? Will chickens have enough sense to break their routine and sleep inside if/when the weather gets to a dangerous temperature for them? Thank you!

 

[21hens-incharge]

How big is the coop and how many birds?
How many linear feet of roost space?

Can you post pics of your coop please?

 

[Catharinejo]

How big is the coop and how many birds?
How many linear feet of roost space?

Can you post pics of your coop please?

Ok I think the problem is identified. We have more bantams than I remembered- chicken math. We had a couple people ask us to take bantams that were getting bullied in their flocks and while they are getting along with our bantams we are short on roost space. Working on reaching out to friends with more space since we are about 3 over capacity.

The coop is 7x3 ft and has 9 feet of linear roost space. We have 12 bantams right now. They have plenty of run space but the coop probably feels more crowded.

I’ve got to learn to say no!

Thanks for your help. This very tired teacher should have figured it out sooner.