I need some advice

[glendaschicks]

Why not try physically putting the stragglers on the new roosts after they've gone into their nighttime "coma"? Maybe a few nights of this will get them to use the new roost.

Good idea. I'll try that tomorrow night if another night on the poop board doesn't get them to try it themselves. Thanks

 

[ChickenLegs13]

Couple weeks ago several of my grumpy old hens got to be such bad roost bullys that I had to hang dividers over the perch so they couldn't see

Just out of the blue??  What did you use for dividers?  This is interesting to me because mine seem to have enough room, but the bullies don't want the last 2 or 3 up the ladder to even get close to them, and lean down to peck at them until they just huddle on the poop board.  hmmm  These are all young, with at least 3 cockerels in the mix. I'm wondering if dividers would help with them...  I suppose it couldn't hurt to try.

Yeah, just out of the blue. I have 4 old hens that are the most vile dispicable chickens on the county. They were raised together, ate, forage and slept together but recently turned extremly violent on the roost.
At roost time they would peck, attack & flog each other off the roost. They would even knock the rooster who was twice their size off the perch crawling under & over him to attack a hen on the other side.
I installed more perches but they would jump from perch to perch atacking each other. The bullys would even go to the far end of an 8 ft long perch just to stalk & attack another hen that was sitting there all by herself. I was going to install a dozen young pullets and I couldn't allow all the drama & violence. I even put 1 really bad bully in the Death Row pen and she promptly threw 13 roosters off 3 different perches. Well, that didn't work.
So I installed roost dividers so they couldn't see each other. Problem solved. Now each old grumpy hen sleeps alone in her own section and the new pullets sleep in a section by themselves.
To make these dividers I tied a string to the roof over the perch and draped a feed sack over the string like a curtain.

If they won't let each other up the ladder you'll have to set a bucket or box under the divided sections so they can hop up to the perch.

 

[glendaschicks]

Put in another roost today, same height as the other one, about 18' in front of original one, with an extended poop board underneath, but it's not working as of tonight. There are still 2 BO's sleeping on the poop board and one huddled in the nest area at the bottom of the coop. We decided to give it a night or two before trying to intervene again.
Lots of squabbling and squawking going on tonight as they went to roost. We have a cold front moving through with thundershowers and wind. Just wondering if that affects chickens very much...

 

[1muttsfan]

I put a second roost in at right angles to the first, seemed to work well. You might just take the ladder out completely, at 18 weeks they should be able to fly up (I have never had a ladder in any of my coops).

Roosts are like nest boxes, everyone wants the one someone else is using.

 

[glendaschicks]

We tried the right angle roost a couple of nights ago, but it was a temporary thing, and had no takers. How high is your roost, or the platform underneath? We have one runt pullet, same approximate age, that I don't think could fly up to the platform. It's about 4' high.