My hens don't roost?! Bad setup?

[Sabz]

My laying hens don't seem to roost much! I've seen a bit of poop under the roosts, and I see them going up the ladder to the roost when I am in the coop, but the majority of the time they are on the floor.

Is that normal? I thought they would roost about 50% of the time. Maybe they roost at night and go down to poop on the floor in the morning? lol. I wonder if they don't like my setup, they are too dumb to go up there or it's just normal that they are mostly on the floor.

I know a picture would help, I am already at work and forgot to bring one... here is the ladder that goes up to the roost:




And here is a picture of the roost when it was almost finished. Well, there isn't much changed, I added wood shavings below the roost and cleaned up my tools and leftover wood

The roost at the complete left is a 2x4. The others are 1x1 but they "join" in the middle, so the middle is "double 1x1", so they have the choice of roost sizes..

 

[Chick Charm]

I would try to raise the roost higher above the shelf so they don't feel as close to that shelf. Another thing is to make sure that they have plenty of room away from the wall so no feathers are touching. Just my two cents. Sometimes we just have funny chickens.

Wish ya the best.

 

[4 the Birds]

My laying hens don't seem to roost much! I've seen a bit of poop under the roosts, and I see them going up the ladder to the roost when I am in the coop, but the majority of the time they are on the floor.

Is that normal? I thought they would roost about 50% of the time. Maybe they roost at night and go down to poop on the floor in the morning? lol. I wonder if they don't like my setup, they are too dumb to go up there or it's just normal that they are mostly on the floor.

The distance of the poop board below the roost bar looks good to me. Hard to tell but the bar will need to be at least 12' from the wall and hopefully no drafty wind at the bar height. Your ladder looks like it could use more rungs! The spacing of the rungs is pretty far apart. Overall it looks like a pretty good set-up and your birds should spend the night up on the roost and most all of your poop down below the roost bars (that's the case in my coop).

 

[Sabz]

It is true that my ladder doesn't have a lot of rungs! I thought that if they used it a few times, it meant they were able to. Maybe it's too hard so they don't want to use it too often.

Are drafts bad even when it's warm? As example, yesterday was 30 degrees celcius so I opened up the window. I usually close it at night or when it rains, as I am not 100% finished with the coop and if it rains and winds, it will come in through the window.

I will check the distance with the wall, don't remember.. I think it's 12 or 16 inches but looking at the image I am not sure anymore!

Thanks for the ideas!

 

[jetdog]

I would cover the ladder with plywood and add some traction strips, it might make it easier for them to just walk up instead of jumping rung to rung, switch out the 1x1 for another 2x4 maybe it's not comfortable for their feet.

 

[pound4pound]

"teach" your birds to roost where you want them, rooster, hen, cockerel or pullet.

at night, place them one by one to your desired roost location.
make sure the roost has no light or else the birds will go nowhere.
do this untl they "learn" to locate the roost before nightfall.

 

[Sabz]

Ah that brings up a point I wanted to ask. I have two big windows in the coop. I live in an urban area, there are no streetlights, but yesterday the moon was shinning a fair amount of light through the coop windows! I was wondering if it could be too much? For me, it is surely too much, I can not sleep without the curtains down

At 10h15 PM I went to spy on the girls to see if they were roosting. They were moving around!! I didn't see exactly what they were doing, but it wasn't sleeping. I thought maybe the moonlight was too much light.

I will add some curtains to the windows, anyhow it will help reduce the heat of the warmer summer days when the sun shines through.

I could also try to teach them They hate me for the moment, if I try to pick them up, they run all over the place and seem pretty scared. What I did for the last few days was to put my hands near them, so they would run off in the opposite direction, leading them up the ladder.

I will also make the ladder a bit simpler to use. They can definitely use it, but maybe it is asking too much effort! Or could be bad for their joints maybe..

Thanks for all the inputs.

 

[Nuggetirl]

I'd like to know what finally does (or doesn't) work!

 

[4 the Birds]

Ah that brings up a point I wanted to ask. I have two big windows in the coop. I live in an urban area, there are no streetlights, but yesterday the moon was shinning a fair amount of light through the coop windows! I was wondering if it could be too much? For me, it is surely too much, I can not sleep without the curtains down

At 10h15 PM I went to spy on the girls to see if they were roosting. They were moving around!! I didn't see exactly what they were doing, but it wasn't sleeping. I thought maybe the moonlight was too much light.

I will add some curtains to the windows, anyhow it will help reduce the heat of the warmer summer days when the sun shines through.

I could also try to teach them They hate me for the moment, if I try to pick them up, they run all over the place and seem pretty scared. What I did for the last few days was to put my hands near them, so they would run off in the opposite direction, leading them up the ladder.

I will also make the ladder a bit simpler to use. They can definitely use it, but maybe it is asking too much effort! Or could be bad for their joints maybe..

Thanks for all the inputs.

You can add curtains if you wish but they will get filled with coop dust pretty quickly. It would be a stretch to think that the moon light is a problem with too much light. Give them time and they will all be up on the roost bar at night. They will even line up in the same order each night as they find their particular roost bar spot.

 

[Ridgerunner]

How old are they? From that photo it should not be an issue at all, but I’ll ask a silly question. They may not be the chicken in that photo. Are any of them Silkies that can’t fly?

I don’t think it has anything at all to do with that ladder. It should not make any difference if you took it out completely as long as they are regular breeds and not some highly ornamental breed that can’t fly. I don’t know how high your roost is off the floor, but my full-sized regular chickens have no trouble jumping/flying up to my 5’ high roost. They could easily go higher if they needed to.

I don’t think height above the droppings board has anything to do with it. If you remove the roost, they’d be happy sleeping on the shelf itself. Some people on this forum are quite happy with their roosts about 3” above the droppings board. One member often comments that the close distance keeps eggs from breaking that are laid from the roosts.

I think you hit on the problem with your last bit of information that no one else had when they were responding. You painted the inside of the coop white so it is bright and shiny. You have a lot of windows. On a clear moonlit night, they don’t know it’s bedtime. Your curtains may be the best solution. I’d try that before I did anything else. Just make them dark curtains.