How to get the hens to use the roosts

[aggiemae]

They will stay on the coop floor as long as they feel safe there but, as with most new things, at some point one will hop up there and the rest will just follow.

 

[aggiemae]

All of my hens are cuddling together in the nesting box. These are my first hens, I have had them for less than a week. Should I be blocking the nesting boxes so they can't cuddle?

Yes, you should be blocking the nest box until you get an egg but only because they will get in the habit of sleeping and pooping there and later you will wind up with poopy (or broken) eggs. Your hens can cuddle on the coop floor until one decides to try out the roost and the rest will just follow along. There isn't a magic age for this but it almost always happens before they start to lay.

 

[ChickenFeats]

Thank you AggieMae!

 

[chynasparks]

My peeps are still juveniles. I am in hopes they will adapt to the roost in time. They are going in and out of it during the day, the roost is higher than the nest boxes. Actually they haven't shown an interest on them yet. I will just keep going out and put them inside until they get the idea.

 

[Thomps Hens]

Thank you Aggiemae!

 

[azygous]

It's really very easy to teach youngsters to roost on a perch. You place them up there, and keep putting them back when they hop down.

There are two secrets to making this work. One is to do it as it's getting too dark for them to see. They'll want to be settled as it gets dark because they lack confidence and don't want to end up all alone in the dark.

The second is to place them very close together so they're touching. This is why they prefer to puppy-pile in a corner on the floor, for the comfort and reassurance they get from each other. When I first place them on the perch, they're nervous and a bit afraid. I place my hand gently on their backs until they calm down and settle on the perch.

Just last week I moved my six five-week olds into the coop. It took three days and they were hopping up on the perch all by themselves. A week later, they are putting themselves into the coop, as well as navigating the plastic flaps over the pop hole. They're six and a half weeks old.

 

[Boneheadeb]

Almost all of my chickens huddle up in the nest box at night. Only a few use the roosts (made out of twisty willow branches). They were previously huddling up on a higher surface above the next box until I blocked that area because they were soiling their water from up there. I just let them be, and clean out the nest box frequently. I guess I don't care where/how they sleep. The hens still use the nest box for laying eggs, so all is well.

 

[Faso]

I had this issue. Block the nesting boxes at night for a week or two. Put a golf ball or two in each so they see them during the day. When it gets cold, they will learn!(If it gets cold there)

 

[icbleu]

You know, I actually posted about this very same problem about a month ago. I got pretty much the same advice. I hadn't worked with chickens since I was a kid, so despite having had a lot of birds in my world, I have never had a nest box to deal with. Their chickeny behavior was perplexing to me because they would literally jam themselves into the nest boxes and get them all dirty with poop and refuse to use the much easier to clean perches all properly positioned in their house.

But then it hit me, birds really don't like new stuff. I mean, sure, they acclimate - chickens even faster than other species. But it still bothers them when they see something changed. I knew that if you want to brood a parrot species, you get a nest going and you leave it be. This allows the parrot to accept the box and become comfortable enough to nest. If you keep moving stuff around in a next box, your parrot may never brood.

Well I figured the same logic should apply to chickens. So I went out and got some nice sweet hay, some fake eggs (I hear golf balls work too, but I dont golf) and changed their nest boxes. I also figured that I could change the hay every day and move the "eggs" around, and in and out every few days, this way they would very quickly prefer the perch to the boxes that keep getting messed around with.

In my case, as soon as the birds were up on the roosting perches - mine did it on the first night - I left the boxes alone. Now I just move an egg or two in for a night every few days or so and clean the hay once a week to keep it fresh in case one of them lays. I see a few feathers and signs that they have been inside the box and looking around, but they sleep like good birds on the perches now and that makes me happy.

All I gotta do now is watch for them laying. Sigh, its never easy watching them grow up.

 

[Beekissed]

They can cuddle on the roosts. If you let them sleep in the nests, they will continue to do so and your nests will continually need cleaning due to poop. Poop on the eggs..not good.

Birds can be broken of this by going in under cover of darkness with a small flashlight so there isn't much light shed on the operation. Remove them abruptly from the nest and don't be gentle about it...it helps if they are surprised and not bit happy about the disruption. Fear is a great motivator and it's fearful for chickens to be grabbed up and moved at night when they cannot see. Place them on the roosts.

Should take about 3 days of this, no more than a week. It has worked for me with 100% success over the years.