DellaMyDarling
Songster
I have a very mixed age flock.
Included, a large number of late summer hatchers.
These guys adamantly refuse to roost. There are a couple who have broken the herd mentality, but most of them just chicken pile.
As the rest of my flock has seen this, more and more often I find the older birds sleeping on ground, on shelf, and no longer sleeping near their chosen bird buddies. Weirdos.
Judging by the copious amounts of smaller bird turds in my nest boxes every.single.day, these non roosting brats are pooping up the joint at night.
I DO need to build more roosts, but I can assure you that not all roost space is being utilized as is. More roosts are intended to give more selection and accommodate everyone once full grown. If they'll use them.
There are no drafts hitting the roosting locations. Every bird is coop comfortable.
Although, another oddity, these younger birds refuse to go out in the run either. You can toss them all out the window and within 30 seconds there's a stampede back in. When weather was nice I even tried things like penning them in one side of run without the rest of the flock, and they'd chicken pile against the divider. Tried locking them out with the flock and without in the entire run and there'd be a giant bird pile on the ramp. A few odd times I let them free range. They stayed about 5ft out the barn door.
Hmm. Thoughts? I had none of these issues with the last 2 batches of birds I raised.
Included, a large number of late summer hatchers.
These guys adamantly refuse to roost. There are a couple who have broken the herd mentality, but most of them just chicken pile.
As the rest of my flock has seen this, more and more often I find the older birds sleeping on ground, on shelf, and no longer sleeping near their chosen bird buddies. Weirdos.
Judging by the copious amounts of smaller bird turds in my nest boxes every.single.day, these non roosting brats are pooping up the joint at night.
I DO need to build more roosts, but I can assure you that not all roost space is being utilized as is. More roosts are intended to give more selection and accommodate everyone once full grown. If they'll use them.
There are no drafts hitting the roosting locations. Every bird is coop comfortable.
Although, another oddity, these younger birds refuse to go out in the run either. You can toss them all out the window and within 30 seconds there's a stampede back in. When weather was nice I even tried things like penning them in one side of run without the rest of the flock, and they'd chicken pile against the divider. Tried locking them out with the flock and without in the entire run and there'd be a giant bird pile on the ramp. A few odd times I let them free range. They stayed about 5ft out the barn door.
Hmm. Thoughts? I had none of these issues with the last 2 batches of birds I raised.