Noisy at Bedtime?

[Squirrelgirl88]

I'm perplexed, The last two evenings, my flock of 5 hens and one rooster have been going in to roost and within the first ten minutes they start the most awful racket. It almost sounds like their egg song, but much louder and the entire flock is doing it. Last night it sent me in a panic running back out to the barn to see what beast had scared them so badly. Nothing.

Tonight they started it before I even got the door closed for the night. Again - no critter, no monsters under the bed. When they start this ruckus, my poor baby goats panic and start freaking out too.

Any ideas?

 

[Jeffross1968]

Ours does this. We found that our EE likes to hop up on the roost and start to burrow under whoever is next to her, causing hens to fall off. They make a crazy racket until the EE settles down...

 

[Squirrelgirl88]

The hens were all in their own little spaces, some on the roost, some clear up in the barn rafters. They do sometimes get a little possessive of their personal space, but everyone was spread out tonight. I would swear something was killing them the way it sounded. I even searched outside. No owl, no critter, no vampires, not even a sasquatch!

I guess I'll just keep a close eye on them at bedtime for awhile. Maybe they just wanted me to read them a story.

I'll have to find my old copy of The Little Red Hen.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Oh, sorry. I thought this thread was complaining about my snoring.

 

[SIMPleChick]

Yup....sounds like fighting over favorite spots! Mine did that too, had to add 2 more roosts even though they had PLENTY of space!

 

[Mattemma]

My EE hens do the burrowing thing too!My hens are all shoving around for the spots they like best.Seems to be the places next to Jack the roo are the favorite ones.Jack just tries to hunker down while the ladies push and shove around him!

 

[Squirrelgirl88]

Well, this was not a case of over crowding. There was at least 3 feet between each one. Two were actually still at the feeder, and one was standing on the top of the goat pen.

Just that "mob mentality" one gets loud, the other join in.

 

[JPHorvath]

I have same issue with the hens squabbling over favorite personal space I’m very sure this is what cause one hen to become blind in one eye. Don’t worry they will do this every night I believe this is part of the “pecking order”. At one point I had to find out what the noise was about too so I gone up to the coop to observe the commotion? Have to say some of my hens are real “B!+(h’s” when it come down to this routine.

 

[7&8]

Hopefully, it's just a phase. "This too shall pass," I'm guessing. I'm not much help, and can only say, in my experience, chickens go through "phases" of miscellaneous insanities such as this. I agree that it's pecking order related. I'm not sure what to think about the goats having to deal with the crazy chickens...

Don't feel alone - with two groups of pullets/ cockerels just beginning to use the roost bars, I have major drama at roost time. I stay out of hearing range for the half hour it takes them to do what they need to do; then all is well. All we can do is provide adequate roost bar space in a predator safe, environmentally friendly to the birds building, whatever it might be. Which you've done. The rest is up to them.

If I identify a true bully, they're out, period.

Here's my edit:
I have two coops. A broody raised eight chicks in this coop:

Really, it's a pretty nice space, you would think, right? But no. A few nights ago, when I hear DRAMA at roost time, it was because she & her brood had decided to join the other eight in the smaller coop. Holy heavy metal concert, Batman! I've since added a "bundling board," which has allowed the individual established chicken cliques to have their own pieces of real estate to sleep on:

Someone else mentioned that though there was adequate space on the roost bars in their coop, adding yet another bar was still essential to maintaining equilibrium.

Do I do anything other than work for the chickens in my backyard?

 

[JPHorvath]

Someone else mentioned that though there was adequate space on the roost bars in their coop, adding yet another bar was still essential to maintaining equilibrium.

Yes it is.

I have 3 roost bars, they are at 12" rise x 12" run separation. First roost bar is at 48” above floor almost all my birds are capable of getting up to the first or second run with a jump and short launch flight. However there are a couple hens I picked up from crazy person that clipped their flight feathers. Those girls I have to place on the roost at dusk, I have an evening ritual of “ Putting the Girls to Bed”. Yea, I’m a little crazy but they like it better then hunkering down on the coop floor.

I will post pictures of my “Roost Bars” shortly, after couple months I realized that the spacing should have been 18”x18” the birds on the upper roost will peck at the birds perched on the lower roost. Also to consider is the top roost is always used by the roosters I would have kept that about 24” away from wall so they have enough room for tail feathers.​