SmotherHen
Songster
Yours are still young but will catch on soon enough. Chickens can't see in the dark. I put mine in about 20 min. before dark. If I'm late I go in with a flash light and show them the door.Thank you so much. MY corgis are 12 and I am fortunate that they are not more ill behaved than they already are lol. I am the queen of boundaries, commands, training, rules...you name it...and the corgis just keep doing what they do (laughing and ugly crying at the same time).
I will think on it and get creative. My last resort is to put up a little fence barrier across an area we have that I could technically keep them in and not have to worry about the dogs getting in. Thank you for the encouragement!
They used to sit on a long roost bar and "fly" into the door of the upper part of the coop where they sleep. They were also leery of the walk up ramp - I found out it was too slippery and the rungs too far apart under their feet. I roughed it up with very course sand paper and now they feel comfortable with it but some still prefer to fly in through the door.
You'll figure out little tricks to get them to do what you want. Mine used to want to roost all night in the lower part of the coop and that's Not safe due to predators. So when they all lined up on the roost bar we would pet them - which they found annoying - so would fly into their safe sleep area at the top.
Re the dogs - we have a medium black labX that has hunting in her blood. When she went towards the chickens a couple of them pecked her on the nose. Lesson Learned! She steers clear of them now. But my hens were at least 6 months old at the time so almost full grown. Good luck! You and the chickens will fall into a comfortable routine!