Making coop changes

[Mamachic1967]

My husband says making changes to their coop upsets them and stresses them out?

I want to make them comfortable especially with winter coming. We have 2 rows of nesting boxes; 1 row high, the other lower. The low row of boxes haven't been used since the day my chcikens arrived. They're laying in the higher rows and sometimes in the corner on the straw/hay. I would like to remove the lower nesting boxes and put in another roost since more of them are roosting now and crowding each other. A chicken actually jumped and landed on another chicken tonight so she could get onto the roost.

My question is, by making alterations to the chicken coop, is is okay to do what I want without stressing them out?

 

[trailrider330]

Is it okay to make changes to your coop, sure! It sounds like the changes you are making are pretty minimal.

Will it stress them out, probably at least a little bit. You may see a decrease in egg production for a week or two, but it sounds like adding an extra roost will also alleviate the stress their current set up is causing.

 

[Mamachic1967]

It's something I thought about since we built the coop and I'm the one spending all the time caring for them and watching behaviours and what makes them happy. I will proceed with alterations once I plan it out instead of just inside my head!

Haha!

Thank you. I love when I get great answers to my questions! So very helpful!

 

[Pork Pie]

You may wish to consider putting them in a separate run (away from the coop) during the day, while you are working on the coop. If you could complete the job in one day, then all the better.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

What I find funny is I have double boxes too, mine prefer the bottom boxes, chickens are creatures of habit, mine have always adjusted to changes pretty quickly, I do enjoy the whole discussion that will go on as they inspect those changes, more roosts are more important than nestboxes, so change way.

 

[Pork Pie]

What I find funny is I have double boxes too, mine prefer the bottom boxes, chickens are creatures of habit, mine have always adjusted to changes pretty quickly, I do enjoy the whole discussion that will go on as they inspect those changes, more roosts are more important than nestboxes, so change way.

I agree!! I have 3 nesting boxes (only have 6 laying hens at the moment) and they all fight over 1 nest box! They are mad! Yesterday 2 of them squeezed into one box to lay - the silly things!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I have four polish hens that pile on top of each other, they do get attached to favorite nestboxes.

 

[Mamachic1967]

I considered this, but they will jusy go outside, they're used to machines and lawnmowers running. So I'm hoping they'll do the same.

 

[Mamachic1967]

Oh mine too, but my chcicken flew and landed on another chicken sitting on the roost, she wanted on too!

 

[Mamachic1967]

I've seen mine do that, I have 11 hens laying and we built 10 nesting boxes. Yet they want to share the same 4 boxes.