How to get them to use the ramp?

[Ms~Silkie~Girl]

They'll eventually use, just give them a while

 

[cobrien]

Mine found it easier to go down than up. So, I trained mine to use it by putting them in the coop, and then they'd come down the ramp on their own. I'd put them back in a few more times, repeat. This got them used to the ramp, so when it time for the scary part - going up, they figured it out.

 

[gryeyes]

Oh, excellent idea to keep putting them up there a few times. Or it would be if I could get to them more easily TO put them up there a few times a day.

I just brought home two laying pullets and put them in the A-Frame coop, at night, on Friday. They got down the first day, but slept downstairs that night.

So, last night, Sunday, I crawled inside the lower pen and captured them one at a time, and put them upstairs for the night, last night. I'd been watching them hop/fly up on the outside of the A-frame, as if they KNEW there was an inside they could get to, that way... Apparently that ramp thing they came down doesn't equate as Upstairs Access.

It wouldn't be so tough later in the year, when the ground around here is hard like concrete... but this mud crawling bit. Yech. Add cackling & flapping hens to the capture process, I feel pretty beat up after putting only two pullets to bed.

My original flock of 7 are VERY interested in the newcomers and are P.O.'d that they don't have access to the A-Frame coop any more.

Patience, patience, I tell them.

And my young cockerel is suddenly crowing much more often, and near the new ladies' side of the run. None of his current gals are mature enough for his purposes.

 

[Dinkadoo]

They will get the hang of it. We put ours in the coop at about 12 weeks old. Every evening we would put them up the ramp over and over. Some days we would hide and watch to see if they finally got it. LOL Just have patience, they will figure it out. You should have seen the look I got one night at church, when I told the ladies I had to go home before it got dark to put my girls up the ramp.

The things I do for my girls.

 

[FortWorthChicks]

lol