Roost behaviour-anyone ever watched them?

[gregblackburn]

Mine are almost ready to lay and still won't roost

Mine don't roost either. There is a ledge inside of the coop that they all sleep on together.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Mine don't roost either. There is a ledge inside of the coop that they all sleep on together.

Why roost when you have a ledge

 

[User395221]

First thing I thought when I saw your pic, was 'good space'.

I'm very lucky to have a big backyard and enough room not to have been constrained to a small coop. Having said that, if bossy boots wasn't there, they'd be perfectly happy with space a bit bigger than that roost for sleeping (she must have been sleeping up with the others before I put in the second roost and she could indulge her greedy roost-hogging tendencies.

Having a mild climate means they can still be outdoors all through winter, they never even go in there in the daytime, other than to lay. The coop is raised, so they can hang about underneath and still be under cover, but outdoors. It's a whole different ballgame when you've got snow and ice, and they have to stay indoors singing 'rain, rain, go away, come again another day"

 

[User395221]

Just an update in case anyone else cares (nope ). I went up there the other night, and daphne is now off the floor and up with the other girls.

 

[aart]

Just an update in case anyone else cares (nope ). I went up there the other night, and daphne is now off the floor and up with the other girls.

Always good to followup for future reference. <thumbsup>

 

[K.Riggs]

Speaking of nest box antics.. Come on now girls

 

[chickengeorgeto]

So, I have 2 new young girls in with some of my other chooks. I put them up on the roost the first night, but the next night all of the girls spread out so there was no room for them (without shoving them up, and I don't think they would have liked that). Today, I installed another roost and I hung about at "bedtime" to see what happened/put the new girls up there.

It was fascinating. The 2 little girls moved off the "main" roost. I settled them on the new one, and they were hunkered down and seemed comfortable. Then the other girls started coming in. 2 of the isa browns came in last. The little girls started getting upset when one of them came in (she might be the "boss chook"?). She wandered about a bit, eyeballed me as if she was going to "sort me out", then decided that she wanted to squeeze in between 2 of the girls. That didn't work, she just fell back down. Then she decided she'd go in between 2 other girls and they pecked at her, so she moved everybody over and knocked the girl on the end off. Then there was a bit of moving about until everyone seemed to find a spot.

Is this jostling and "mucking about" normal? I wish I had "chook cam" to see what they're up to out there every night. It was quite a show.

I highly recomend that you watch your birds go to roost for at least a month.

Now some of you may be so traumatized by this experience that you'll go running to Dr. Phil to get your head shrunk. However nothing will prepare you better for understanding the pecking order than watching your hens getting ready for bed.

 

[User395221]

Speaking of nest box antics.. Come on now girls

multistorey chooks.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I highly recomend that you watch your birds go to roost for at least a month.

Now some of you may be so traumatized by this experience that you'll go running to Dr. Phil to get your head shrunk. However nothing will prepare you better for understanding the pecking order than watching your hens getting ready for bed.

Ahhhhhh....now come on CG, you're scaring people - those sweet faced, fluffy butted, cuddle bug hens wouldn't do anything to alarm anyone would they


That horn on my Wyandotte's combs mean they are unicorns, not devils

 

[User395221]

those sweet faced, fluffy butted, cuddle bug hens wouldn't do anything to alarm anyone would they

All I can say is that miss bossy boots shove-the-others-off-the-roost is lucky I'm a sooky city dweller and not a farmer. She might have found herself as first in line for dinner
(interestingly, one of the others was "permitted" to share "her" roost when I checked on them to see what daphne was doing now)