Quedtion for different ages

[cge7]

The youngest two are about 11 weeks old while the older girls are about 18 weeks....with the older ones coming up on laying age, how should i go about opening up the nest boxes for them without the young ones sleeping in them?

the young ones just started using the roosting bar with the big girls i want them to keep that habit

 

[Ridgerunner]

Open them and see what happens. Worry is interest paid before it is due. If they are going to sleep in the nest boxes I want to know that before I start getting poopy eggs so I can fix the problem before they start laying. If I don't have a problem I don't have to fix it or worry about it.

Chickens tend to want to sleep in the highest spots available, but there are some things that can mess with that. Moe mature chickens, especially pullets or hens, can bully more immature chickens on the roost. Sometimes it gets bad enough that the immature look for a safer place to sleep. That does not always happen but it does sometimes. Some of that depends on the personality of your individual chickens and some depends on the layout of your coop, especially roosts and nests. Each situation is unique.

I hate to think how many younger chickens I've integrated over the years, either raised by a broody hen that handled integration for me or brooder raised. In either case it is not that unusual for the older chickens to bully the younger so much that they do not sleep on the main roosts. Those displaced chicks did not always sleep in the nests but occasionally some did. My solution was to put up a "juvenile roost", higher than the nests but lower than the main roosts and horizontally separated by a few feet. My coop is big enough so I can do that. I took this photo mainly to show how often I clean my coop but it shows my juvenile roost over the nests so it is are clearly higher. That's my built-in brooder to the right. The main roosts are above that.

My suggestion is to open the nests and see what happens. If they start sleeping in the nests get back with us with details of coop layout, number of chickens, things like that so we may be able to come up with suggestions on hos\w to solve the problem with your unique situation. It is certainly possible it can be a problem but it is also possible you will not have any issues at all. Let's get some facts before you worry too much about something that may not be a problem.