Flight Door Poll!

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

It just has an electric actuator and I do have a timer for it and also a remote switch I can use but I have had a couple of them plop down right in the entrance at dusk and had to over ride the timer. What can I say, they are guineasView attachment 3039970

Ah, I see it now. Yeah they can be frustrating to coop at night. My lowest ranking girl keeps roosting on top of the run instead of going into the coop. She’s not hard to get down, if I happen to be home at dusk, which I’m often not. I’m hoping she will go into the run flight door instead, and maybe roost in the run if she wants. Roof of the run is no good though!

 

[Sydney65]

Poll: Question for fun!
I’ve been adding a run and renovating the Guinea coop. I’ve always wanted a flight door, where they have to fly up to use it. I’ve also always wanted to have two doors, so they have less chance of being trapped in the coop by a daytime predator. My thought was that the flight door would be the only one open in the day when hens are brooding coop nests. But, as we know, Guinea fowl are not so smart with doors and fences! So… will they figure this thing out?

The flight door has been installed on the run for one month. 5/28 (18%) of my guineas used the flight door to leave the run yesterday. I’m trying to train them to use the flight door by putting scratch along the perches and by leaving their usual, ground level coop door closed until 1 PM.
View attachment 3039543View attachment 3039544

It looks like there's a shelf below it? If so they'll def fig it out. A yr ago I would have doubted it, as mine had little interest in leaving the ground. But the newbies do, and Mama's caught on. You and I are both keeping quite busy!

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

It looks like there's a shelf below it? If so they'll def fig it out. A yr ago I would have doubted it, as mine had little interest in leaving the ground. But the newbies do, and Mama's caught on. You and I are both keeping quite busy!

Yes here’s a pic of the perch with some scratch. I can see one big problem with my plan - Viola, the 7 mo old violet Guinea hen who is going to get this year’s “Brilliant Guinea Award”! Viola is the only one that is now very comfortable going back and forth through the flight door. When I put scratch on the perches to encourage the other birds to go near the door, Viola happily flies back into the run and cleans up all of the scratch while the other guineas dumbly peck at the ground underneath we her… I tried to capture the beautiful iridescence of the violet feathers today, but my camera just can’t seem to get that amazing light purple sheen. They sun bleach really badly in the summer, but right now the violets are just gorgeous!