Coop

Is this their first night? I know this sounds mean, but I toss them in there and lock them in. They go in on their own after the first night. Never had a problem after they sleep a night in there.
Yeah I'm gonna let them out here soon for their first night, and I was thinking about just putting them in there and locking it up it seems like it would work lol
 
they're scared to go up there

I'm gonna let them out here soon for their first night


A little confusing here, How do you know they are scared if you haven't tried it? But since you haven't tried it we can go from there. Sounds like yours is an elevated coop. No idea how big it is or how many chickens you have. As Aart asked, knowing age could help.

Chickens get in the habit of sleeping in certain areas. If your coop is big enough you can often train them to sleep inside by leaving them locked up in there for several days. Once they decide that is where they want to sleep they can be pretty desperate trying to return there when it gets dark. There is a good chance they will totally ignore the coop during the day but when it gets dark they can be pretty desperate to return there.

One of my coops is elevated. With chicks in the 6 to 8 weeks of age range they often will not return inside that coop at night. Instead mine try to sleep on the ground under the poop door. I don't see that with my ground level coops but it may be just due to my specific elevated coop. You never know with chickens. When that happens I just lock them in the coop at night and let them out the next morning until they get in the habit of putting themselves to bed inside. One time I only had to do that once. A couple of times I had to do that every night for three solid weeks before the last one got the message. My broods are typically in the range of 20 chicks.

If you have a run around that coop, I'd leave them locked in that coop and run until you train them where to go to bed before I let them put top free range. From another one of your posts I think you plan to free range them, but I'm not sure of that.
 

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