how high is your roost?

[NT]

How high off the ground is your roost? Can the hens flap up to it or do you have a little ramp? What roost setup do your ladies seem to like?

 

[powerline]

Chickens like to fly, almost, straight up when going to roost. When they fly down, they like to fly out. This keeps them from injuring their legs. A good rule to go by is, provide twice the room to fly down as they have to fly up. That is, if your roost is set at 4 ft, let them fly out 8 ft while coming down.

 

[gryeyes]

What powerline said.

 

[NT]

Thanks guys

! I built it and then thought oh cr** are they going to be able to get up and down from there? There is a pic of the roost that I built on my page (droppings box underneath still needs to be covered with wire). Does that look like it will work? The branch that I used for the roost is about 2 feet above the top of the droppings box.

 

[powerline]

Looks to me like your coop is about 6 ft wide, and your roost is about 3 1/2 ft high. You should be fine. It won't be a hard drop from that height.

 

[PunkinPeep]

I built my "roosts" about 4-41/2 feet up, but when they grew up, the chickens started using the rafters that are like 9 feet up. I have to make sure to get out of the way when they're coming down 'cause they come down hard. But i haven't had any bumble foot or anything like that, and they've been doing that for many months now.

 

[scooter147]

30 inches. No ramp. I have chickens from OEG to black austrolps and not a single one has trouble getting to it. I did have a ramp at one time but got tired of working around it. It was in the way when I cleaned and when I needed to catch a chicken they just knew that thing would get in my way if they kept running around it.

 

[rainierlass]

Looks good to me!!

- - mine don't have that much room to fly down in to and they do fine - they have a ramp but rarely use it - - depends on the bird - my splash BLRW uses it but none of the others...

 

[Ironmaiden]

My roosts are 5 feet or better. The banty rooster likes to get up in the rafters. They fly down okay, and sometimes hop from rung to rung, hopping off at the bottom. Haven't had any problems so far.

 

[Orchid]

My chickens have a little tractor coop and their roost is 18" off the floor; they more or less just make a little hop down.