Head room for roosting?

[SparksNV]

How much head room do the hens need on their roosting pole? I am trying to get the pole up as high as I can. Front of coop is 5' back is 4'. Thanks!

 

[Gold Griffin Chicken Mom]

How tall is your largest chicken? Assuming it's a rooster, if he's standing on the perch, he doesn't want his comb rubbing on the ceiling/roof. My roosters have been roosting on the outside of their house and the bird netting over the run rubs on their combs and they don't like it. (At least last night Blackie had the sense to go inside with the red hens to get out of the rain. I'll save my rant for another day about chickens too stupid to get out of the pouring rain! I had to throw 3 inside last night. Grr.)

I'm still planning my big coop, so I'll be following this thread too.

 

[elmo]

But if you have vents up high on the walls (as recommended) you want your chickens to be roosting below the level of your vents so you can leave them open or mostly open throughout the winter.

 

[SparksNV]

I do have vents but they can be closed if needed. I do not have roosters. Don't know the height because I don't get them til Friday (I think) and they are pullets.

 

[patandchickens]

I would absolutely never give normal-sized (large-fowl, but not huge breed) chickens less than 14-16" over the roost, and more like 2' is a whole big lot better.

Not sure why you're trying to get the roost as high as possible, but it seems to me that the determining thing would be where the nestboxes are; but if you mount the nestboxes so the bottom is like 14" above the floor, that is plenty of room for them to walk (hunker down) below 'em so's not to be losing usable floor space, and if the bottom of the nestbox is at 14" then the top is probably at, what, maybe 2 1/2' (or not quite); so you really needn't have your roost any higher than 2 1/2' to 3' at most. Anyhow if your coop is that short, it is probably also smallish in footprint and the higher the roost is, the more horizontal room they need to get up there and back down, and the more likely they'll find conditions cramped and awkward for doing that. So unless you have some sort of unusual design situation going on, I would think that a 2 1/2' roost would be plenty good, and also give them quite adequate headroom.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[possumqueen]

Putting the pole up as high as possible is not nearly as important as head room. Banties like to be up high, and guineas like to be on Mt. Everest, but I've had some of the bigger breeds who were content to sit on a 2x4 turned on edge just above the ground, because the bigger chickens can't jump down from great heights: it hurts their legs.