How do you get chicks new to coop to not sleep in next boxes?

[ARose4Heaven]

I am currently in a fight with my older hens on this issue. I have a rather large divided coop, and they had their roost in the same area as the nest boxes.

Since I have added 80 new 9 week olds to the flock, the area was no longer big enough for roosts for everybody. I moved the roosts to another section of the building this week. I have to close the door to the nest area and physically move every last hen out to the roosts at night. I am hoping that after a week or so, they will have new habits. It is such a pain every night to take them all to the roosting area and then get to the henhouse before dawn to open up the nesting area for those early layers!

Train yours from day one! As was said, a sheet over the nests at night seems to work wonders. It takes about a week, then you may still have stubborn ones that you will have to physically move to the roost for a while.

 

[mrsteiner]

I haven't built my hen house yet. What's a poop door?

 

[Judy]

My nest boxes are flat on top and a few inches higher than the roosts. The top board happened to be one that had some wsrt of plastic laminate on it so scraping poop off is no problem. But I keep stuff up there, a plastic bin full of odd shaped stuff, so they lost interest.

My 8 week olds were sleeping on the floor in a corner. I finally went out there two nights in a row after dark and set them on the roosts. That's all it took, now they are roosting on their own.

It's probably not a poop door, (didn't read the whole thread,) it's a pop door, the chicken sized door. Or else it IS a poop door and is opened to clean the poop board off.

 

[acw123]

I too am trying to get the older hens to stop sleeping in the next boxes. I assumed that since I got them at 14 and 17 weeks of age they knew what they were supposed to do. I guess they didn't get roosting bars where they were raised because they have no interest at all. I tried putting them on the bar at night but I guess it isn't dark enough and they jump right down. I will try out blocking off the boxes and hopefully that will work. On the other hand I have 6 Barred Rock chicks and that are 3 weeks old and they love to roost. I gave them a roosting bar and they prefer it to the bottom of their brooder any time they sleep or nap. I wish I could put the babies in their to teach the older ones but I know I have to wait a long time before they are big enough not to get picked on. Thanks for the blocking off info...I hope it works for mine.

 

[cute chicks here]

My chicken won't go into the coop at all. I have a dog house attached to a large dog cage. I have a nesting box in the back of the doghouse. I bought a nice perch and also made a perch out of an old stick. The only place my chicken will sleep is outside in the dog crate on the stick. I don't know how to get her to start going inside. I worry she might be cold at night.

 

[Jeffross1968]

Sometimes it can be a simple set up issue. I've experienced moving two flocks from our small coop to the big one. In the small coop, there was one laying box and 2 small roosts that were only maybe 6 inches off the ground. The coop/run was not built very high. In both cases, parts of the flock would sleep every night in the laying box, all in a pile. But in both cases, when moved to the larger coop, they immediately, on the first night, began sleeping on the roost, which in the big coop, is a couple feet off the ground, and high enough to be above the top of the laying boxes. Instinct is a funny thing with chickens.

 

[atomic_chicken]

i am also new to chickens and my 9 week old australorp X were also not doing what I thought they were supposed to be doing. I adjusted the height of the roost and then they were all fighting over being on there all of a sudden. They were on my feeder and I put an angle roof on and they had no choice but to roost. They look happier on the roost!

 

[In His Service]

Quote:
Just a typo...pop door is where the chickens enter/exit the coop (I love those funny typos, I make them all the time myself.

)

 

[allpeepedout]

Mine did not start using the roost at night to sleep until they were many, many weeks older than the OP's. I provided nest boxes at 19 wks., when an egg was about to pop out.