Nightly Roost Kerfuffles

[allison_waring]

Curious to get your thoughts on my flocks sudden inability to roost peacefully at night. A week or two ago I noticed that our flock of 6 (5 hens and 1 rooster) were being aggressive towards each other each night as they began to roost. They've always generally been pretty peaceful about finding their spots on the roosts and being fine with whoever roosted next to them. The last couple weeks a couple of our hens and our rooster have been pretty agressively pecking at our other hens causing them to jump off their perch and try to find another place to roost. It seems our dominant hen and our rooster want the whole perch to themselves. It's causing the rest of our hens to roost off on a smaller side perch or in our nesting boxes. My response has been to play bouncer, trying to put chickens back on perches and figure out who can perch next to who without killing their neighbor. It's getting a little tiring.

I'm curious if it might just be that they're extra moody because they're molting or if this might be a longer term issue? This is their first fall molt since they are about 18 months old. Has anyone else experienced similar behavior changes during molting? Am I going to have to find a long term solution by rearranging their coop? For perspective we have a small coop with one 5ft long perch that's all one level and one smaller 2 ft long perch next to it at about the same level.

 

[chrissynemetz]

My flock do get extra grouchy when it's molting time. Especially when it comes to roosting. Would it be possible to add one more roost to the coop?

 

[aart]

I call it the RoostTimeRumble...some times are more contentious than others.
Molting could definitely cause more kerfluffle than usual.

 

[allison_waring]

I'm hoping it's just grouchiness due to molting and they'll be back to their normal life soon. We don't have much extra room to add more roosts so they'll have to figure it out.

 

[Shadrach]

Curious to get your thoughts on my flocks sudden inability to roost peacefully at night. A week or two ago I noticed that our flock of 6 (5 hens and 1 rooster) were being aggressive towards each other each night as they began to roost. They've always generally been pretty peaceful about finding their spots on the roosts and being fine with whoever roosted next to them. The last couple weeks a couple of our hens and our rooster have been pretty agressively pecking at our other hens causing them to jump off their perch and try to find another place to roost. It seems our dominant hen and our rooster want the whole perch to themselves. It's causing the rest of our hens to roost off on a smaller side perch or in our nesting boxes. My response has been to play bouncer, trying to put chickens back on perches and figure out who can perch next to who without killing their neighbor. It's getting a little tiring.

I'm curious if it might just be that they're extra moody because they're molting or if this might be a longer term issue? This is their first fall molt since they are about 18 months old. Has anyone else experienced similar behavior changes during molting? Am I going to have to find a long term solution by rearranging their coop? For perspective we have a small coop with one 5ft long perch that's all one level and one smaller 2 ft long perch next to it at about the same level.

Quite a few of the moulting hens and roosters I've known get grumpy during moult; it's quite noticable. I get the impression that moulting is an uncomfortable business. What it seems some chickens are particularly sensitive a about is having pressure applied to new pin feathers. Once the pin feathers have grown a bit they become more flexible and lie rather than poke out at ninety degrees to the body. On a crowded roost bar this can be an issue.
I think as long as the perches are all the same height, I would let them sort out who roosts where.