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Pozees said:
The news piece said two chickens died :(

Mine are all out too, and good thing, the wind shifted my run and tipped a coop over. Had a huge gust, had to have been close to 60 mph. Moved a little metal trailer with fence pickets in it a few feet, blew some other pickets around, very mean wind. I guess once we get the new coop set up in the run (was supposed to have happened today until the weather got so nasty) we now have an immediate next project - anchoring the run.
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Wow! sounds like its blowing at your place like it is at mine! Too bad about the dead chickens.
 
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still need end of day help...
prior to moving... my 3 big girls would go into their coop at dark, then I would come out side and check on them and make sure the door was closed for the night.

it's been 10 days in our new home..
Now they wait and wait at our sliding glass door, I come out and they want to be picked up and put to bed. The little girls have to chased and caught before I can get them to bed. This is driving me bananas
I have tried going longer and seeing if they will put themselves to bed, the big girls do, but the little girls will find a place by the house to huddle together.

I think I need to retrain them. Ugh!
 
jgurshtein said:
Ok, that was going to be my next question! Can I get chicks from a supplier during week 1 and then get day old chicks from the same supplier (but a different breed) during week 2 or 3 or... how long can I wait to mix chicks? At what age is there a big enough size difference (among like sized breeds) that the older ones will pick on the younger ones?
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I've gone up to a month difference where the elders were a month and I worked the new babies in. The two week olds with new babies were really easy to move in together. I put their boxes next to each other, and made a window for them to see each other. Supervised visits for 2-3 day and they were fine to live together. When I moved all of them in with the older babies, it was a bit harder. The older babies were a month older than the youngest, and they were about 8 weeks when I did it. They had a chicken wire wall between their habitats and had to do supervised visits for 2 weeks before I felt they'd be ok. Even then, the smallest babies still had a place to escape to and had to use it regularly for another week or two. I've got some 14, 10, and 6 week olds living together peacefully in the garage and as soon as the new coop is done they'll be moving into the new coop with the older birds (38, 36, and 34 weeks). They already free range together and it goes well, so I'm hoping the new coop will be ok right from the start.
 
WendyGeisler said:
still need end of day help...
prior to moving... my 3 big girls would go into their coop at dark, then I would come out side and check on them and make sure the door was closed for the night.

it's been 10 days in our new home..
Now they wait and wait at our sliding glass door, I come out and they want to be picked up and put to bed. The little girls have to chased and caught before I can get them to bed. This is driving me bananas
I have tried going longer and seeing if they will put themselves to bed, the big girls do, but the little girls will find a place by the house to huddle together.

I think I need to retrain them. Ugh!
Click to expand...

The only problem I've ever had with my girls going to sleep is a little silkie who couldn't figure out the ramp. She'd huddle under the coop til we tossed her in the coop. It took a couple weeks but she got it. Something I read to do when changing there home is to lock them inside for a couple of days before letting them out into the run. It worked on my girls with their move into their current coop and I plan on doing it when I move everyone over to the new coop.
 
WendyGeisler said:
how long do you lock them in?
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2-3 days is all it's taken for the few times I've moved chickens. Once Lucy hatched her chicks she tried to take them to her old coop as soon as they left the nest, but I kept them all locked up for a few days after that and she changed her home to the garage. Bowie took the same amount of time after I moved her to the garage. If you don't have enough space in the coop to lock them up for a few days, then maybe it would work to severely limit their run so they don't have many choices. Something else that may work is having a light in the coop that turns on before it gets dark to draw them to the coop. That may be why they're coming to your house's sliding door, they're being drawn in by the light? My meaties won't go to bed in the garage by themselves if I don't have the light on. They'll just keep playing outside.


ETA: With all this snow, I am SO DONE having chickens in the garage. That's where my car belongs! I can't wait until we get the new run fence up and then I can move everyone around in the coops.
 
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dennarahl said:
2-3 days is all it's taken for the few times I've moved chickens. Once Lucy hatched her chicks she tried to take them to her old coop as soon as they left the nest, but I kept them all locked up for a few days after that and she changed her home to the garage. Bowie took the same amount of time after I moved her to the garage. If you don't have enough space in the coop to lock them up for a few days, then maybe it would work to severely limit their run so they don't have many choices. Something else that may work is having a light in the coop that turns on before it gets dark to draw them to the coop. That may be why they're coming to your house's sliding door, they're being drawn in by the light? My meaties won't go to bed in the garage by themselves if I don't have the light on. They'll just keep playing outside.


ETA: With all this snow, I am SO DONE having chickens in the garage. That's where my car belongs! I can't wait until we get the new run fence up and then I can move everyone around in the coops.
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I would never have thought of that but it makes a lot of sense! You could even just sit a flashlight in the coop.

Only other thing I thought of is training them with treats - mine will turn inside out for meal worms, for example. At dusk, you show them what you have that they LOVE, and then walk to the coop and toss it in, making sure they watch and will follow it in. Hopefully once you have done this a few days, they will learn that you appearing at dusk and walking to the coop means bedtime and good things in the coop.

But the light thing, I love that for it's logic and simplicity, I would probably try that first!
 

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