Chickens won't go thru entrance hole in floor....

[sandiatonimarie]

So they prefer stairs to ramps? Please excuse my confusion -- it says "New Egg" under my name for a reason, as I'm sure you can tell...

 

[insiderart]

Hey if the silkies can figure it out, anyone can!

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Mine figured it out...

 

[Kirtusjon]

Quote:
I'm not saying that all of them prefer stairs. I had about 50-50 That like one or the other. I was able to remove the blocks a couple of weeks later after they got use to the ramp being there.They were scared of it for some reason. It is only a suggestion.

 

[sandiatonimarie]

Okay, have to add that to my notes ... some prefer stairs. Wild. There are a lot of handy people here at BYC, maybe someone will come up with an escalator for chickens. We could recycle some old bull dozer tread, add a small solar powered motor ...

Seriously, cinder block stairs is good. At least I'll have another thing to try if I end up with rampophobics.

 

[gsim]

I built mine and did a slope of 4:1 outside and 3:1 inside. They took to it like it was nothing new. They pretty much ignore the one inside tho, preferring to hop up to their 24" height nests. When I did mine, I put the cleats every 4" on a piece of recycled pr treated deck board. I have seen posts showing chicken ladders' walkboards smooth with no cleats and also too steep of an incline. I have also seen them with cleats over a foot apart and cannot figure why.

Coaxing them with treats should do it. I saw where the Warden of Cluckawalla Valley did it and had a lot of fun while she was at it.

 

[sandiatonimarie]

Thanks! I can definitely use those ratios and measurements. Cleats a foot apart? That would seem to be too far apart to be useful even for human feet. Go figure...

 

[whm]

Ok, they are doing it now, I guess I just needed a little more patience, (which is hard when the wind chill is 10 below). thanks for the input everyone!