chicks wont roost.. howcome?

[birdbrain5]

i moved my chicks into the big girl coop the other night. i put them up on the roosts, but none of them stayed on there. they all huddle in the corner to sleep. im wondering if this is my fault because in the brooder and the other pen i had them in i didnt put roosts...

how young do you start with roosts for them? and will they eventually want to roost? i sure hope so..

 

[Andy1354]

They should start to roost at some point and you are doing the right thing by putting them on the roosts. I too kept mine in the brooder (with no roosts) for longer than I wanted to because I hadn't finished my coop. When they just got to big for the brooder, but I still hadn't finished the coop, I let them roam around my yard during the day, and put them in my garage at night. At first I would pick them up and put them on the saw horses I was using as roosts and they wouldn't get off the roosts until I came in in the morning to take them out. They figured out pretty quickly that the garage was where they were supposed to go at night and learned within a few days to enter the garage and get up on the roosts themselves. Once I finished the coop, it only took them about one day to figure out that was home and started going there by themselves at night and to lay eggs.

 

[Fred's Hens]

They'll learn it. It takes some of them time, but it is an instinct to do so, and they will. Right now, they are mimicking their brooder piling up because they are familiar and comfortable with that behavior. It comforts them. That won't last. Adults rarely do this. Adults prefer their own space, and that is on the roost. Once up there, they will jostle and compete for the best places, but hey, they are chickens.

 

[AKsmama]

Fred's Hens :

They'll learn it. It takes some of them time, but it is an instinct to do so, and they will. Right now, they are mimicking their brooder piling up because they are familiar and comfortable with that behavior. It comforts them. That won't last. Adults rarely do this. Adults prefer their own space, and that is on the roost. Once up there, they will jostle and compete for the best places, but hey, they are chickens.

x2. They'll do it eventually. I worried about mine the first couple of nights, but they got it. I put mine in the coop at 3 1/2 weeks (it was August and plenty warm enough) and it took a couple of weeks for them to use the roosts. They'll practice during the day and bam, they'll just do it one night.​

 

[JerseyFresh]

When I finally got around to put the roost in the coop it took them about a week before all of them were using it. They're not dumb, just chicken.