I have 9 older hens and 6 new pullets that I got about two weeks ago. The new hens are sleeping in a nest box (huddled together). I have tried adding them to the roosting bar after everyone has settled in, but they still jump off. Any advice?
My pullets preferred to sleep huddled together on the floor for awhile. We bought 3 hens and 7 pullets to add to our two grown hens and a roo..about a month 1/2 ago. It has just been in the last few weeks that they have started roosting on the bar with the rest of the flock..I wouldn't worry but I am no expert. Shelly
When we built a brand new and much much nicer pen for our chickens, we also built a new perch. Well instead of using the custom built perch they decided to sleep on the edge of the pen on the chicken wire. We spent several nights trying to get them to use the perch. We would wait until they were asleep and try to move them. At least one of them would wake up and then they would all start squawking. Then we thought that maybe they won't wake up if we try to move them without turning any of the lights on. So we crept to the pen, and when we were almost there I tripped over a bag of feed fell into the pen and everyone again started squawking! (It was a really funny moment!) For the final attempt, we waited until it got dark and when the birds flew up to the chicken wire we would pick them up and put them on the perch. Well we tried that repeatedly for about a half an hour before my husband and I looked at each other and realized that our birds were getting the best of us! Since then we are decided that there are two universal truths about chickens: 1. They are divas who will do what they want when they want. 2. Chickens HATE change. Since then we have taken the approach that so long as it doesn't hurt them or the eggs we don't worry about. The short version of this story is they will sleep where they want and if it doesn't cause any problems don't worry about it because you aren't going to win anyway. Hope this helps and good luck!
