Nine week old hens won't roost

[Skittleinaustin]

My nine week old hens will not roost. They go up and down the ladder no problem, but they choose to sleep in the run instead (it's a three sided coop and open run). They huddle together in a corner. I've been putting them in the roost area at night after dark, but they seem to be incapable of doing it on their own.

Should I be concerned? It's a well protected coop, but it seems odd that they aren't roosting even after three weeks out there.

 

[FireTigeris]

If there are older chickens that are hogging the space and not allowing them to go in?

If they are safe I wouldn't worry.

 

[Lollipop]

At nine weeks they are still babies. Being reared by a hen, they would be roosting by now, but with no mama to show them the ropes, they have to figure it out on their own. They will get it at some point. Nothing to worry about.........Pop

 

[Den in Penn]

Which is why I put training perch in the brooder. But keep putting them on the perches to train them now.

 

[FireTigeris]

why?

they will decide one day to use the perches.

 

[Den in Penn]

why?

they will decide one day to use the perches.

Your right they'll learn on their own. On the farm the brooder house had roosts you would raise as the chicks got older. Started off at about six inches off the floor going thru a foot, foot and half, two feet. When they were let out to free range and finish growing up, they truely did learn to roost in the trees. Most of them prefering the trees to the brooder house or rain shelter.

 

[Skittleinaustin]

Thanks all. I will quit stressing!

 

[Ole rooster]

Just give them a roost low enough they don't have to look for it. Just a foot off the ground will work. They'll get on it.

 

[Skittleinaustin]

It's now 11 weeks and they are roosting on a branch I put in the run, but still not in the roost. I've quit putting them in after they go to sleep...gave up. Now my concern is that they won't use the nesting boxes when the time comes since they are in the roost area they never seem to use. When will mother nature kick in and tell them to go higher?

 

[gryeyes]

None of my non-chicken raised chicks would roost at night until they were around 12 weeks old or so. None of 'em. The broody hen hatched and raised chicks got up with Momma around six weeks of age, just to stay with her when SHE returned to the roost. Another broody tried to get her chicks to roost at five weeks but ended up every night on the floor with them until they finally managed to roost with her one night. It took her about a week to train 'em.

So, six weeks or less with a momma encouraging them, twelve weeks without.

It's not a big thing at all that "they won't roost at night."

As for egg laying, you've got some time left before you have to start worrying about that situation!

Young layers often take a few days of laying before they figure out the nest box is the best place for eggs. Many of 'em are startled by the need to lay an egg and drop their first few eggs wherever it happened. "Buh-bawk! An egg fell out of my butt! How odd!" And off they go, after laying their eggs on the coop floor, in the run, maybe in a corner of the coop. Even after they start laying IN the nest boxes, they'll still announce the now-familiar event after they get out of the nest and go on their merry ways.