New Hen doesn't Perch

[zazouse]

 

[casportpony]

The PA 4 are the spoiled ones! @DylansMom , could very easily make room for 5th one!

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

@DylansMom , just had a thought... could you make her a perch that's a foot or two off the ground and see if she'll perch on that?

-Kathy

 

[Arbor]

Would the fact that our barn has a concrete floor change anything in your opinion?

As long as the floor has bedding, it should not make any difference. Last winter I had a pen of blackshoulders that was at my fathers place. He insisted on leaving the hatch open so they could eat snow - which was fine, except it lead to slight drafts in the shed. All three birds would stay off the perch and lay down on the ground. Better heat retention, as cold air is not around their entire bodies. She should be fine.

 

[zazouse]

Lol...."like my 4 spoiled brats", I love it. I too have 4 spoiled brats that don't use their perch. I have put them on and they just jump off and go down to their nesting boxes. S-P-O-I-L-E-D.

LOL i know what you mean i got a porch full of old broody Cochins and old fat cochin roos they are to fat to get more than 3 foot of the ground so i let them sleep on one area of my porch where i keep shavings to catch their poo for my gardens.

Just in case i did not tell ya..

 

[new 2 pfowl]

When Peggy was in his pen, he wouldn't get up on the perch at night.
Of course, I know it isn't as cold here in CA, but he seemed really comfortable sleeping on a doormat like this:

 

[zazouse]

When Peggy was in his pen, he wouldn't get up on the perch at night.
Of course, I know it isn't as cold here in CA, but he seemed really comfortable sleeping on a doormat like this:

I remember that he slept with skunks and possums in the pen silly boy.

 

[new 2 pfowl]

Here he is on his cozy doormat with some of his Furry Friends...





Luckily he is now free and sleeping at the very top of a beautiful oak tree!

 

[Garden Peas]

Really? That is news to me. I had a juvenile male returned to me, many years ago. His owner had a warrant out for her arrest and was making a run for it( seriously). She was conscientious enough to try to do right by her bird though. Unfortunately while capturing him, she injured his leg. I took him to a vet who said the damage was to the joint, no broken bones and other than giving him a cortisone shot they couldn't help him. He couldn't use the leg and hopped around, roosting on the ground on wood chips for bedding. He was fine for several months until it got really cold and then one morning he was just gone, he had good weight so I just assumed it was the cold that did him in. Guess it was something I wasn't aware of. Thanks for letting me know, I'm still going try putting her up after dark a few nights, but if she doesn't take to it at least I know she won't freeze to death.



Would the fact that our barn has a concrete floor change anything in your opinion?

Hey @DylansMom , one of my original IB boys is lame -- and has been for almost his entire life -- so he can't perch, even if he wanted to. He hobbles around, and often sleeps with his lame leg sticking out. (He gets around okay and actually has a really good quality of life, so no reason to put him down...) Anyway, he can fly, but he can't roost. I keep medium-deep wood chips in the bird house, and he sleeps in the wood shavings and is perfectly happy. In the day time, he sleeps in the sun in the dirt, as do the other birds from time to time. When the weather is nice, these peas will actually sack out in the sunshine like horses

go figure. Anyway, he's made it through all the winters fine so far. He tends to wallow out a nest shaped area in the chips, and I bet he is warmer than the birds on the roost

I do think that a bare, cold & possibly damp concrete floor would be an invitation to frostbite and a sinus infection, though. If your hen doesn't start roosting before the weather gets worse, can you fix her up an area with coarse pine shavings? I just had to pull up one of my new planter box frames due to the pen expansion project, and I was looking at it, thinking how handy it would be to keep shavings in one area... I do think the shavings need to be several inches deep. Plus mine have been on dry dirt (one bird house) or on a plywood floor (other bird house), never on concrete. I would use a deep layer of chips if I had to deal with concrete, and maybe put some kind of barrier between the chips and the concrete?

Sorry for taking so long to respond, I've been away from computer again... By this time, that poor hen has probably learned to roost, started laying, and enrolled in higher education courses online. Or maybe she is now knitting sweaters for the nights on the hard concrete floor?

 

[Garden Peas]

... heck it's getting dark already, I hate Daylight Savings Time!

Oh yeah, x2! We are having that discussion again, here. We have that discussion 2x per year in this house. We really hate the time changes

and we would really like the time to not get sprung forward or fallen back... and for it to just be left alone... We have enough trouble maintaining schedules without the abrupt time change...

Did you know that people actually have heart attacks from the time change? Heart attacks, traffic accidents and suicides all are reported to increase when we "spring" forward. And there are also health issues with circadian rhythms caused by the abrupt change when we fall back... Why can't the rest of us just say "no" like those clever people in Arizona???

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120307162555.htm

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/29/us-heart-daylightsaving-idUSBREA2S0D420140329

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/04/17/daylight-saving-time-effects.aspx

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/daylight-saving-time-linked-heart-attacks

Oh yeah, and it confuses the birds.