chickens wont return to coop at night

[yyz0yyz0]

My free range city chickens are about 2 years old and have recently stopped returning to the coop. We had a cat teasing them, and I think they decided it wasn't safe. They now roost by our back door and I carry them back every night and have for about a week. Any suggestions to retrain these older girls?

do your girls respond to any kind of treats? I can get my birds back into the run or anywhere else I want them to be just by shaking the Scratch jar and yelling "scratch".

Also maybe you need to chase them away from the place they want to roost before it's dark. If they are getting harassed in their new location they may just return to the coop.

Also you could try locking them in for a couple days.

 

[Chicken Geandma]

My chickens have been great since they were tiny to return to the coop, but we have had extremely hot weather lately, and an antagonizing neighbor cat, and I think they are stresses. We have been carrying them back for about a week, have tried bribing them, tried earlier bedtime........nothing had worked. And they have stopped laying! Any thoughts?