Hello from the old egg capital Petaluma!

[baywinger]

Hi everyone I guess I am a newcomer here, though I have been following all of your wonderful advice since my wife and I got our hens last year.
I did not realize I did not actually join the group.

I do have a question
one of our Americuana's no longer roosts with the others at night she sits all alone by the front of the coop until we go out after sunset with a flashlight and point the way to the roost then she will go join the others, this is a new behavior and has gone one every night since the time change.
While it is cute to have to tuck her into bed each nite we are worried something is wrong, any advice?

 

[sumi]

Hello and welcome to BYC

Unless something's happened that makes her scared of going into the coop at night I guess she just figured out how to get bed-time cuddles

 

[baywinger]

she is in the coop but she won't go up to the roost to snuggle with the rest of the flock to keep warm until we come out.
we have checked different times of night, right after sunset and after midnight. she wont go up even if she is shivering we are guessing there must be some kind of aggression problems while the others can see

 

[DDNONIN2016]

Hello and welcome from Ohio....so glad you joined. I have a couple hens that are also sleeping in a different spot lately. I have observed some of the more dominant hens picking on them when they try to get on the roost. Hope thats all it is and nothing else is wrong with your girl

 

[baywinger]

Hello and welcome from Ohio....so glad you joined. I have a couple hens that are also sleeping in a different spot lately. I have observed some of the more dominant hens picking on them when they try to get on the roost. Hope thats all it is and nothing else is wrong with your girl

thank you for your response, that goes along with what we are thinking.
we also have developed a feather picking issue in the flock and I see that can be a protien issue which makes sense as we changed from a 20% protien feed to a 16% feed we did this as we wanted organic feed and we can only find it in 16%.
so I just gave them meal worms in yogurt to see of that will help I will also switch back to the 20% feed

 

[Kevin565]

 

[redsoxs]

Greetings from Kansas, baywinger, and

! Happy you joined us. It's funny, I have EEs among my mixed flock that do that once in awhile. I'll do the head count at bedtime and come up one short. Look around and it's under the roost or in a nest box...or in a tree. But only once in awhile and only with that variety. Beats me but I wish you luck!

 

[weimarmama]

& from Alabama. Glad you joined us.

 

[baywinger]

interesting so after I gave them all the yogurt and meal worms, our little hen who was staying out of the roost went to bed with the rest of the flock tonight