My chickens will not go in their coop!

[grtechmetch]

Help! My chickens will not go in their coop at night time. Their chicken coop in elevated and surrounded by 10X10 feet of a dog run and chicken wire over the top so no predators can come in. There is no door on the coop.

They are nine months old now and ever since they could kind of fly, they have flown on top of the coop instead of inside. We can't get them to stop. We have tried forcing them in every night for a long time and they still never want to go in on their own. We tried blocking the top of the coop, but they just keep sleeping on the sticks in their cage.They lay their eggs in the coop, but that's it. I was never too worried about it, but now that the cold weather, is here I am very worried. I have a heating lamp above the water, but they don't seem to like it very much. They only go under it when they drink.

The night temperature gets to the low teens.

Any ideas? Or, is there need to worry?

p.s. We clean out the coop every day and put a night light inside the coop. I just don't know what the problem is. (these are our first hens we have had)

 

[willowbranchfarm]

They dont have mites or lice do they?? Sometimes they wont go up at night because of these parasites in the coop.

 

[mdbtalon]

In my experience chickens will go into the coop(and under heat lamps) when they "need" to so as far as the cold is concerned I would not be too worried about them not going in. Of course there are other reasons you may want them to go in at night like predators and things, but it sounds like they are staying in a secure run outside so that is probably not an issue?

Do you have roosts for them inside? Any problem with rats or snakes in the coop?

In either case I would not worry chickens generally do just fine in the cold and assuming these are grown chickens they do not even "need" the heat lamp.

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Have you tried putting a light in the coop that you turn on a little before dusk? That might help lure them into the coop. When I've had new chickens, there seems to be a few days, or even a week when I have pick one or more up and place them in the coop at night, but they've always got the knack of it pretty quickly if there is a light on inside.