Chickens sleep in one nesting box

[Jazx]

Help, maybe. All seven (7) of our chickens sleep in one nesting box. They don't roost. I had an awesome PVC 1" ladder style roost for them. I was told to use 2x4, wide side up, so I just made that yesterday. I was also told to block the nesting boxes. The Girls were MAD!!!!! Two (2) of them jumped at my face and clung onto the screen while squaking and flapping their wings.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

 

[En Plein Air Farms]

are they still chicks? Mine are 12 weeks now and they do roost, but off and on during the day still you can find them all in a big pile.

If yours are laying try closing the nests off in late afternoon.
Or, members say moving a broody is a lot easier at night, you could place them all on the roosts well after dark, then close off the nest.
Unless you have open top nests though, be careful about pulling them out, you can hurt their legs because they stiffen up.

Good luck. I'll bet it would be funny on a chicken cam...like 30 clowns getting into a VW.

Welcome to the site!

 

[gardendufus]

Let them fuss, they will get over it. And they will start roosting on the roost in their own time. Hopefully your roost is higher than the nest boxes. Chickens like to roost on the highest place available. I'm also assuming that your birds are still fairly young and haven't been sleeping in the nest boxes for months or years.

If your nest boxes are higher than the roosts, you might consider lowering the boxes or raising the roost.

You might consider blocking the boxes with something solid, rather than wire, or even putting cardboard in front of the wire so they can't get a toehold on the wire. I'm not sure but I think they would stop thinking of the boxes then as somewhere they wanted to go if they couldn't see in. Bird's are pretty visual.

 

[LilChickyCoop]

Hi Jazx, my chicks are about 8 weeks old now and when I put them in the coop they did the same thing but after several days they they started roosting on their roosts. Mine still get in a nest box or at least 2 or 3 of them at a time but they end up on the roost. I have 24 girls and they are all spoiled they wait at the gate for me when I open my back door of the house. I think they will learn just give them some time.