Flock refuses to come in from the cold and rain..What to do?????

[Egghead_Jr]

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I use a timer too. Now that it's getting into winter I've no problems with the girls wanting to roost outside. For the Leghorns that took temps getting below freezing and high winds. I think the others have a point about your roost pole too. It's slick, small and low to the ground. We used 2x2's and the girls are happy with them and they are cheap, under 2 bucks each at local Lowes or Home Depot. Two teir roosts for those not so great at flying will get em up higher where they feel safe (flying to lower then again to higher). Course you have a lot of birds, perhaps two roost equal hieght to hold em all. I think they need 10" per bird of roost space.

 

[centrarchid]

Try placing a night light, like used for children, in coop and have it run 24 / 7. Light levels should be good enough to enable birds to see but not repell if bright situations stop going to roost. Logic for repelling with bright light is based on my birds varying time of going to roost as a function of how bright it is at dusk owing to cloud cover. They vary time of going to roost by fifteen minutes. Brigher means later, darker earlier.

 

[sharol]

Light works for me. My girls wait for the light in the coop to come on to go in no matter how dark it is outside. I also put a little solar light in the coop in case the light on the timer turns off when they are off their roosts. I do have electrical light (a 20 watt counter light), but they went in just fine when it was just a little garden solar light from Walmart.