Night time roosting problem.

[KyCoop]

My 8 girls are 17 - 19 wks old. They have been roosting up at night since age 8 wks. The problem is my SLW waits for every one to get up and settled and then start jumping up and knocking everybody off the roost! I normally would let them sort all this out but I think these nightly antics have injured my little SS. Penny is much smaller then the other girls and she is limping and acting sore. There is a head hen but she does not stop it. What can I do ?

 

[neo71665]

Sounds like the roost isn't large enough. Got enough room to add another bar?

 

[3KillerBs]

How big is your coop and how long is the roost?

 

[KyCoop]

The roost is 7 ft long. She waits until most of the girls get settled. Before jumping on them. She won't use the unoccupied roost space which there is plenty of. We did plan on adding another bar for summer but we thought they would want to cuddle up together in winter. I guess we are adding it now.

 

[3KillerBs]

7 feet is too short for 8 chickens.

The guidelines for roost length is 1 foot per chicken, but sometimes they need more than that because of pecking order squabbling.

 

[neo71665]

Yep, not enough space for the birds.

They will cuddle up but still need room to get up there. In the summer they will space out and you have no where enough room for that.

 

[aart]

The roost is 7 ft long. She waits until most of the girls get settled. Before jumping on them. She won't use the unoccupied roost space which there is plenty of. We did plan on adding another bar for summer but we thought they would want to cuddle up together in winter. I guess we are adding it now.

Good idea.
How high is the current roost?
They can need extra space to fly up.
Pics might help.

 

[KyCoop]

We added an extra 3 ft of roost yesterday into a T-shape. 10ft total roost space 24 inches high with 3 ft over head room. Non of the other girls have any problem getting on. Until they all get knocked off then all heck breaks loose and the flapping and screaming begins.
The picture is when we first built the coop can't really see how big it is. The coop is 6 x 6 x 4 with nest boxes on the outside. We will be adding an addition this spring.