Height of roosts?

[sarahlorrain]

How high from the floor of the coop do you place your roosts?

 

[JackE]

Three roosts bars, all three ft. high. (Pg 4, link below)
Jack

 

[jvgrist]

Ours are similar. about 3ft high. high enough to still easily clean under without having to crawl around (=

 

[Ridgerunner]

It depends on your chickens a little and on your coop a lot. In general, as low as reasonable is best.

I think it is grossly blown out of proportion, but many people are concerned that a heavy breed chicken can injure its leg hopping down from a roost. My chickens spread their wings and fly down to soften their landing, but you are dealing with living animals so anything is possible. But the higher the roosts the more horizontal room they need to fly down without banging into things, so if your coop is small, lower is better. They are not necessarily the most graceful of fliers. With that said, my full sized dual purpose flock will sometimes launch themselves from a five foot high roost, fly forward about 7 or 8 feet, hang a sharp left to fly out the people door, and land in the run. Anyway, I suggest as low as reasonable is best.

The main thing is that the roosts need to be higher than anything you don't want then roosting on or in, especially nest boxes. Most chickens instinctively want to sleep on the highest thing available. They poop a lot when on the roost and you don't want them to sleep and poop in the nests.

My normal progression in determining roost height is to determine floor level, determine bedding level, then set the nest boxes. Once that is done, put the roosts a little highter.

Another consideration with me is that I really like permanent ventilation open in the coop, especially in winter. I put mine up under the overhang. But I don't want them sleeping in a draft in winter, so I keep the roosts low enough that they are sleeping below those ventilation openings.

Good luck with it.

 

[Barred Rock Caf]

Ridgerunner posted some very sage-like advice. I'd like to add that (remember, YMMV) for my birds, I built a simple ladder that facilitates the ascent/descent up to the roosts (two levels, staggered horizontally so that thy neighbor poops not down thy back and tries to tell you it's raining!) using a foot-wide by an appropriate length piece of OSB roof sheathing that was scrap, to which I screwed 1" x 2" pine furring strips cut 1 foot long, which are spaced at 6-inch intervals up the ladder for traction. Also to assist in traction, I screwed the 1x2's to the rough side of the OSB. This side of the sheathing is specifically manufactured for traction of people who work up on roofs to minimize slipping/sliding. So I figured it wise to let the birds' claws/talons also grip this rough surface while using the ladder.

My roosts are high, maybe too high. I say this because several ladies like to "add" a third level by hopping up onto the 7' high top plate of the stud wall and roost there! Usually this would be fine, but now I see hardened roost poop lying atop the hardware cloth in the soffit/rafter cavity where it will be difficult for me to get it out. Oh well.

In summer now, the birds like the high roost of the two-level roost and the ad hoc stud wall roost. Maybe they like the soft air currents that flow from low soffit up to where it exits the coop at the high wall soffit, or through the windows, depending on wind direction.