My chickens are chickens!

[Rustic Chicken]

Well I have got brave enough to move our 6 week old chicks to their new coop (pics to be uploaded soon). They seem to be adjusting to their coop which is very spacious (100 sqft for 8 chicks), however, they refuse to go outside into the run. Is this normal? And if so, how long do I give them before they all get a friendly nudge to the outdoors?

 

[gryeyes]

Well, they're not called chickens for no reason!

They do NOT like change and are very hesitant about new things. Give 'em a few days. One will eventually be brave enough to go outside, and others will follow before too long after that.

 

[chickerdoodle]

I let my 6 week old chicks just stay in the hen house for two days and nights to get them to familiarize themselves with it and teach them to sleep there and then I opened the pop door to the run. They appeared to feel braver when the door opened as they were ready to check something else out. I just went in the run myself and since they already associated me with really good things they came right out after a few peeks around the pop door. Our hen house is 33" off the ground and they even had to navigate a ladder!

You can try using goodies as "breadcrumbs" to entice them as out well. A little patience may be needed as well.

Don't forget to take pictures!

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
What gryeyes said.
I'm having the opposite problem right now. My 5 week old chicks are free ranging for part of the day. Last night after everyone else had gone to roost, adult chickens and chicks alike, I had to go to the other side of the garden (more than two acres away) and retrieve five of my chicks that wanted to stay out searching for that one last grasshopper.

 

[gryeyes]

I find that my adult chickens go to roost much earlier than the younger ones. Just like kids - they don't wanna go to bed yet!

My "Middles" are now using the same coop as the Big Chickens, and they have learned to go into it before the automatic coop door closes. (It closes a good 30 minutes after all the Big Chickens have gone inside to roost.) The Middles (four 19, maybe 20 week old pullets) don't settle down on the roost right away. There's been quite a bit of chicken-y discussion audible in that coop until the Middles stop futzing around in there.

The Littles wander around in the run even longer. They come in from the yard, but hem and haw their way around the various coops, corners of the run fencing, looking for anything the rest of the flock may have missed throughout the day. Finally, they go roost in the Duck House (which is "their" coop).

The babies in the brand new coop do NOT want to go to bed at all. It's a perfect grow out coop because it's got its own attached run. The babies (5.5 weeks old) have been outside in it for over a week now. They get sad and cheep a lot because all the other chickens which have been around them all day long (especially Buffy and the GrandChick) have gone to roost in their own coops and suddenly they're the only ones outside (safely inside the attached pen). But they do NOT want to go to bed. I have to get into that pen and catch 'em to put 'em up in the coop and close the door.

And the ducks? Those two have taken over the role of Watch Ducks. They wander the property most of the late evening and well into hours of darkness, eventually going to sleep next to each other on my front door's concrete stoop. It's been so hot around here I keep the doors open at night (with security screens locked) and I can hear the ducks mumbling all night long. It's a comforting kind of sound.

But there's certainly NOT the "all the chickens are in bed now" situation I had when there were just the 9 Big Chickens!

 

[Rustic Chicken]

Update - The girls finally were brave enough to venture outside yesterday and they loved it!

 

[theFox]

My new flock took three days before any of them walked the plank. It took a couple of days longer before all of them took the walk.

I think the first one talked the others into giving it a try.

Getting them back in has been an interesting task. One is always out until I pick her up and put her in.

The one that is out also can mimic the bull frogs in the pond, so maybe she thinks she should always be out.

 

[Rustic Chicken]

I love it... "walked the plank"! That is exactly how they acted. I watched one of them literally push another out the door. I guess once she survived the rest followed. You are right though, now the trick is getting them in.