Our Girls are still afraid of the dark? How long?

[LynneP]

Maybe they are legitimately frightened. Chickens have poor night vision. Could something get them off a roost? Would it be possible to reinforce with 1/2" hardware cloth? We live at the edge of the boreal forest and we knew that predator-proofing would be our greatest challenge. Our coop and run are like Fort Knox!

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

my 600 chickens were scared of the dark. It wasn't fun. Had to spend a week of staying up till 9 for the lights to go off then about 30-60 mins to make sure they were ok. I started with about 3 hours of off time and then put it back on. After that i put it to 8 hours. and there fine. Only problem was the two timers dont like to go off at the same exact time.

 

[Anne]

Doesn't matter how old they are, chickens will always be afraid of the dark. It's survival instinct. If the don't have a perch, or don't know how to perch, they will panic.

EDIT: OR, if they don't have natural light that gets darker gradually, they will simply gravitate to the lighted area when it gets dark, and if it's after dark outside and the artificial light goes off suddenly, they will panic since they didn't have any time to perch or otherwise settle in to a "safe" place.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
If you have wire big enough that a raccoon can reach in, I'm guessing that you are using standard chicken wire. It would be best that you switch it to hardware cloth, as Lynne P. has said, that way the coons can't reach thru it.
I am a newbie chicken mama too and I hated to see them pile up, so I'd turn their light back on. About the third night of doing this, my SO stopped me and said they have to get over it. They did. Now they find their roosts as it starts to get dark. Make sure you have enough roosts for everyone.

 

[Welsummer]

Okay, thanks to everyone's suggestions and advice we now have a plan! Our coop is open so they are not being plunged into darkness all of a sudden so I guess they just need to learn how and when to roost. We are going to work with them and gradually take away the light. Here is a picture of our door that they love to pile up in front of when the sun goes down. We have doubled the chicken wire or should I say layered it so that nothing has a straight shot between the two layers. In other words there is a 2 inch space between two layers of wire that are stretched so that the holes don't match up. We also lined the top and bottom of the entire coop so nothing can get in (we pray)

! Thanks for all the suggestions!!

 

[Beekissed]

No roosts?

Maybe that's why they are afraid? My chickens like to be high and in the dark when its bedtime. When I throw on the light, they get upset!! The teenagers used to roost on the floor, though they had roosts their height range. They gradually followed the older birds to higher ground and will even go and perch on the roosts in the day.

 

[Welsummer]

Yes we do have roosts, I just didn't include that picture. Here they are.... The girls roost on them during the day but for some reason they won't get up there at night.

 

[debakadeb]

Do you have a window inside your coop? They may be getting closer to the door thinking it is lighter than it is over by the roost.

 

[Welsummer]

Yes, our coop only has three solid walls so one whole side is open for light to come through. The rest of the walls are chicken wire.

We live in Texas and it is just too hot to have an indoor coop.

 

[jdr250]

I'm a first timer too, but this seemed to work for my chicks.
I would turn on the light about 15 minutes before dark and go down fill up there feed and waterer, tell them good night and then shut the doors that took about 5 minutes, then I would walk up to the house and unplug the night about 3 more minutes. There roost is the same height as the window. I did this for about a week and the last two nights as I start to walk down I see they're all in without the light and I finish up the routine.
I think it taught them because the coop was brighter than the outside before dark, then they didn't panick when the light went out because they could see it slowly getting darker on their roost because of the window. So it was a gradual thing.