Question about roosting bars

[TonyBYC]

I installed two roosting bars expecting the two (slightly older) dominant chickens to take the upper one and the other four to take the lower one when they are ready to roost. Instead, the two are on the lower cross bar and the others are still on the floor two months later.

Should I stop overthinking it and let them sort it out? Or change the setup, e.g. to the traditional ladder-style parallel bars (somewhat challenging given the space limitations) or experiment with swapping the heights of the bars?

Coop size is 6'x4' and about 4' tall.

 

[Lizzy733]

What breeds are they? Some birds are vertically challenged - heavy and specialty feathered birds like silkies and frizzles can't get enough loft to reach a low perch.

A ramp up to the perches might encourage them to start using them.

 

[HumbleAmerican]

Is that by chance the easiest landing spot to the roost?

I have had cranky girls park right in the middle of the hop up spots just to make the other girls figure something different for getting up.

I wound up changing the roosts so they are able to fly directly up from floor. Problem solved.

 

[JustBabyMargo]

Putting them up in the spots you would like them to be in may help. I have had to do this with many batches of chicks. Mine normally get used to it and start to jump up by themselves. I like your polish rooster!

 

[HappyClucker7]

Sometimes younger chickens won't start roosting on their own. You have to lift them onto the roosts at night for a bit, and then they'll start to go up by themselves.
For roosting positions, you can let them figure that out on their own. Their ideas of good roosting spots may be very different from yours. So just let them choose where they want to go.

 

[David61]

bad set up. no more than one foot up and one foot over in a latter/pyramid or use a walk way.

 

[saysfaa]

How many inches between the top of the uppermost roost and the ceiling? To be comfortable when they fly or hop up, they need clearance to stand up with their heads up before settling down. How many inches between the wall and the middle roost (that is going front to back on the left side of the picture)? They are more comfortable if they can roost without touching the wall.

 

[David61]

The roof panels have a 4" rise so it more room than it looks.
Chickens comfortable? My girls look for the oddest places to jammed into or hang off of. bunch of nosy old birds.

 

[3KillerBs]

I don't see a lot of flight room in that coop. Chickens fly more like C-130's than like Harrier jets so they generally ascend and descent at a 45-degree angle or less. Thus they have difficulty reaching a perch that is higher off the floor than the distance between the perch and the wall and may crash into the wall getting down.

A 4x6 coop only accommodates 6 chickens so you only need 6 linear feet of roost for all of them to roost. Taking out the extra bars and using one, low perch installed lengthwise or two installed crosswise might help them have enough room to maneuver.

One of the birds in the photo seems to be a Brahma, right?

My Brahma can't fly higher than *maybe* 18" so I had to make a ramp up to the perch and to the nestboxes.

 

[saysfaa]

... Chickens comfortable? My girls look for the oddest places to jammed into or hang off of. bunch of nosy old birds.

True. They do sometimes want the height badly enough to put up with it. Here are most of mine on top of a less than 2" wide top plate ... too narrow and no clearance at all behind it. They were all up there for a few nights, two or three had given it up by the time I took the picture. But if looking for why they might not be going higher...