Yes, I agree that sleeping in the nestboxes is not the ideal. We have had to be extra solicitous about keeping the boxes clean every day and sometimes twice. However we figured out why our hens were preferring sleeping in the boxes. For one thing the boxes are completely enclosed with circle hole entrances. Whereas the one perch in the coop is located at the same level as the nestbox ledge but not as secluded - there's only an outside tarp covering three sides of open wire walls. Also, we had no design input into this pre-built coop at the feed store and the builder did not put a sufficiently wide enough perch to be used as a good roost. There's nothing we can do about modifying this small coop so we don't worry about breaking any chicken habits at this point. I think it will all resolve itself when the hens have a higher perch in a roomier closed house. This is why we are saving for a new coop building like a Dutch or Amish type housing with sturdy well placed higher roosts with built-in clean out drawer accessed through an outside drop lid - not cheap already assembled but we can't assemble a DIY Amish kit ourselves in our old age. Our current coop is too small for 4 chickens - we're adding a Lucky Dog kennel to expand it but it's not the same as an enclosed coop. The little coop was ok for our original two Silkies 3 years ago but we added two egg-laying LF since and need upgraded housing.How much linoleum/sheeting and where you use it is up to you. We HAD to plexiglass our nestboxes because of one particularly OCD hen that damaged/splintered her toes scratching the wood so obsessively that we had to take her to the vet twice. To stop the problem we were forced to use something hard in the nestbox bottoms. I've seen some professionally built Amish coops that had individual low-rim hard plastic trays in each of their nestboxes for easy removal. Any lining that makes your life easier is worth the effort. We have to clean out our nestbox straw daily because the poopy chickens sleep in them plus lay their eggs in them so lining the wooden nestboxes from uric poop was a necessity. Lining makes it easier to clean up a broken egg too because they soak right into the wood when broken. A lot of these little suggestions would have made life so much easier 3 years ago when we started keeping a coop. To this day I am still getting good new ideas and this coop thread has been one of my 2 favourites on BYC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aart
That's a habit that can, and should be IMO, be broken.
We had a White Leghorn and Marans who slept in our nesting boxes along with the Silkies, and Ameraucana. After the White Leg and Marans became bullies we re-homed them to a friend and they quickly by the 2nd night had acclimated themselves to roost on the roomy perch bars in their new pen. So you see, the space, perches, and coop conditions are factors about where the chickens will roost for the night. Some people have Silkies who sleep on the coop floor. Not my preference. So I'm glad that mine have chosen the nestboxes to sleep in. Some people who have floor-sleeping Silkies have enticed them to use roomy covered cat litter boxes with straw to get their birds off the floor. Everyone does what they need to for their situation. I used to think in terms of black or white, right or wrong, but there are shades of gray that we sometimes have to settle for in our individual case. There is the ideal which we all would love and then there is the practical we have to ultimately face.
Love this thread!
