Do chickens need some kind of bed to sleep on?

[lyndatu]

Good night, sleep tight

BUT WAIT


Aside from roosts, is it necessary to make some kind of "bed" where the chickens can sleep on? Not exactly nesting boxes, but something that looks like nesting boxes. Or, can they just sleep on the floor with wood shavings as bedding? Sorry for a lot of questions...........

Thanks in advance!

 

[greginshasta]

They sleep on the roosts. I'm using 2x4 and 2x3 sticks. They just squat down and go night night.

 

[WindyOaksYokes]

No hunny... chickens roost by nature... no bed needed. And dont worry 'bout all the questions... that is how we all learn... believe me... I asked some pretty strange ones when I first started!!! Have fun with the chickies!
Tes

 

[lyndatu]

Thanks ya'll!

I'll teach my chicks to roost as early as possible!

Oh wait, one more question: Are roosts supposed to be cylindrical? Or just rectangular?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

 

[WindyOaksYokes]

I'm not sure there is a right or wrong shape.

Personally I have branches from my trees that are about 5+ inches in diameter. But there are others out there that use 2x2 posts... Maybe someone more educated will come along soon...... And your welcome!!! I try to help when I can

 

[skatcatla]

I wondered the same thing, especially as mine sometimes use the roost and sometimes just pile up on each other like puppies. Its the darndest thing, but I posted a few weeks ago asking if anyone else's chickens did that, and several people replied in the affirmative...

 

[SeaChick]

A lot of people use 2 x 4s as roosts, with the wide (4") side up. The corners shouldn't be too sharp an angle, so usually you sand or rout off the edge so it's a gentler curve.

When our chicks were a few weeks old, we made a little tiny perch for them a few inches off the ground, and showed them how to get on it. They all started playing with it, though they continued to sleep on the ground for a while. As they got older we replaced the perch with a 2 x 2 about 18" off the ground, and they started sleeping on that. So, when they moved to the big-girl coop with its 36" high roost, they had no trouble at all.

We did, however, just get two new hens and one of them is having a hard time with the tall roost! She is a fat Buff Orpington and she can get UP fine.... but she can't figure out how to just hop off like the others. She has to FLY sout away from the perch, and since its a small coop, every morning she smashes into the wall on ther way down. I kept thinking she'd figure it out eventually, but it's been over a week and she still bonks her self on the wall. I am going to go get another 2 x 4 right now and build a sort of intermediate step so hopfully she'll be able to hop up and down using that. Poor thing!

Stacey

 

[valmom]

Well, it's our first year with chickens, too, so we do a lot of reading here We were going to put in tree branches in the coop for roosting on, but it turns out that they like sleeping/roosting on the tops of the nest boxes and on the 4x4 "shelves" that the walls are nailed to. So, they can hunker down and not have to grip with their feet all night. It seems more comfortable to me, and they are happy since they are still up high, so we never bothered to put in actual "roosts".

 

[LoneCowboy]

I put training roosts in with my chick's when I couldn't keep them from roosting on everything else. They were about 3 weeks old. My big girls love their 2x4 roosts. Except for one who sleeps on the window sill.

 

[Scrambled Egg]

You can tuck 'em in on a long dowel from your local home improvement store --love the training roost comment cowboy!!