Newbie with behavior questions.

[Jeffross1968]

Quote:
See if these will do...kind of hard to get them to stand still long enough, LOL....

 

[Jeffross1968]

Were these pics any better, centrarchid?

Also noticed, the last two nights, these 4, which were sold to us together out of a group of about 10 in the same cage, that at night, they refuse to sleep on the roost. I have two roosts. One is smallish, and is being used by the older rooster and adult hen. The other is longer and was in front of the laying boxes. Last night and early tonight, all 4 were huddled together in a ball in one of the laying boxes, ignoring the roost. When I blocked off the laying boxes, they found a 4 inch wide crack between the laying box and the door to the pen and huddled in there, squeezing the heck out of each other to fit. So, I removed the laying box. They went right back to the same corner and huddled together. I tried numerous times to place them on the roost, but they just jumped right off, and then did their best to stay away from me. Is this something they will learn with time? I would have thought that by their age, they'd been doing that already. Is it possible their last home was not proper? They seem very used to huddling together in a small place instead of using the roost like the other two. Strange thing is, we came home from dinner tonight, while it was still light out, to find all 4 using the roost. But by nightfall, they were down and in the laying box. Not sure what to do about it...

 

[Rocky Road]

They only look a little bigger than mine, and they are 7 wks old. I know mine are just starting to use the roost and some are not very balanced. If they are huddling together at night it may be because they are trying to keep warm and they're cold.

 

[greenSearcher]

They will roost when they are older. Sleeping huddled really isn't a big deal if they are out of the nest box. My "babies" run has a short perch, but every batch perches during the day but huddles at night until about 3 months.
Two easy fixes- for security, add a door between the run and coop so you can secure the chickens at night. I lock in my birds at night in an elevated coop and to date I have not had predator loss from the coop (Hope I didn't jinx myself).Then use a 2x4 for the perch, with it turned so they are squatting on the wide side. Will keep their feet warm in the winter and they won't fall if they relax their feet a little bit when sleeping. That will give you time to upgrade when you decide to get more chickens. (It happens, I started out with 12 and now have 43 plus 25 in the incubator.) Last batch of babies was my husbands.