chickens won't sleep in their house

[bluegiantsc]

My chickens are completely free range, they're all over the place. I lost a lot of eggs about 2 weeks ago to what i think was a snake. Then a few days ago i noticed the nest box in the house was over turned, but my chickens are okay. I figured they had over turned it when they hopped in it. I've been meaning to go out and fix it but haven't had the time. When i got home last night, i noticed both of my chickens sleeping next to the front gate, which is right at the corner of our house. (I had noticed a lot of poop there because it is my flower bed.) I left them be last night, but i went out the the house and looked in, the bedding in the house is very disturbed, so it makes me think that maybe something got into the house and turned over the nest box and scared them off. They've been sleeping in that house for over a year, so what do i do? I know that i need to lock them up and they do have a door that shuts and locks. Will they trust the house again?

 

[HEChicken]

If you have something getting in, the last thing you would want to do is lock the chickens in there with it. The first thing I would do is make sure it is secure and that nothing can get in. Even a snake can be deterred by hardware cloth if the openings are small enough (1/2"). A snake small enough to fit through that opening is too small to be a danger to an adult chicken.

Can you set up a game camera to watch for a day or two and see what, if anything, is getting in? Have you looked for claw marks, scat etc. around the coop?

 

[TNdeedoll]

My hens are totally enclosed in chain link with chicken wire over it 3 ft up. I noticed alot of food was being eaten so I thought they were just growing. Came home one day and looked out the window and there was a blue jay in their run eating all of their food. They were all hiden under their house, scared.
Blue Jays are very aggresive and we have alot of them here in TN.
I scared the Blue Jay and watched him fly right through my chain link fence about a foot from the top where there was no chicken wire. I was ****** and my girls were scared. I began to envision those mean Blue Jays attacking my girls who were only about 3 months old then.
So I put bird netting from the top to the ground. Their roof is enclosed with chicken wire.
Boy were the blue jays mad! They continued to fly by and harass my girls and even tried to bite through the bird netting, but to no avail. Their run is now totally bird proof and my girls don't stay under the house anymore. The Blue Jays have finally moved on to harass something else, LOL.
Do you have Blue Jays?

 

[HEChicken]

Do you have Blue Jays?

No, and from what you're saying, I'm glad we don't

 

[bluegiantsc]

Can you set up a game camera to watch for a day or two and see what, if anything, is getting in? Have you looked for claw marks, scat etc. around the coop?

I don't have a game camera to use. I know that we have raccoons because we've had an issue with them before, but i was pretty sure they had gone away. I've looked in the house and there aren't any claw marks or other poop other than chicken poop. But every time i put them in the house, they go to one corner and look at it like there was something there. So i think a snake may have gotten into the house, and thats what ate the eggs and scared them. I check the house multiple times a day and in the evening. I didn't start to put them back into the house until the other night when it was pouring rain. They weren't happy with me.

 

[bluegiantsc]

My hens are totally enclosed in chain link with chicken wire over it 3 ft up. I noticed alot of food was being eaten so I thought they were just growing. Came home one day and looked out the window and there was a blue jay in their run eating all of their food. They were all hiden under their house, scared.
Blue Jays are very aggresive and we have alot of them here in TN.
I scared the Blue Jay and watched him fly right through my chain link fence about a foot from the top where there was no chicken wire. I was ****** and my girls were scared. I began to envision those mean Blue Jays attacking my girls who were only about 3 months old then.
So I put bird netting from the top to the ground. Their roof is enclosed with chicken wire.
Boy were the blue jays mad! They continued to fly by and harass my girls and even tried to bite through the bird netting, but to no avail. Their run is now totally bird proof and my girls don't stay under the house anymore. The Blue Jays have finally moved on to harass something else, LOL.
Do you have Blue Jays?

We do have blue jays where i am, they're huge and mean. They don't seem to mess with my chickens too much, they attack my outside cats though. I usually don't have a problem with birds, we do have owls and a hawk pair, but they don't mess with the chickens either because we have dogs. My chickens are free range though, so they don't have a run to get into, just our yard and their house to go into at night.