Roost Question

[JD123]

I am a new chicken owner. We purchased 6 Tetra Tint chicks at Tractor Supply 3 weeks ago. The chicks are supper sweet and love my two little girls. We are having so much fun!

Anyway, to my question.... We are building our coop and I found a lot of info regarding roosts. One bit of info that I found said that if you live in areas that get cold (we live in North Jersey) that you should give chickens 2x4s ,turned the flat way, to roost on so their body can help keep their feet warm when the weather gets cold. Is this OK for the chicken's feet? The reason I ask is because parrots, parakeets, etc... are supposed to have multiple sized perches because it is not good for the muscles in their feet to be in the same position all the time.

If I put the 2x4s in the flat way the chickens feet will always be open. Is this OK? I know that parrots and chickens are VERY different birds but I wanted to ask anyway.

Thank you for any info!

 

[Ridgerunner]

You’ll find that different people have different opinions on that. There is no agreed answer. I don’t know of anyone that has studied that with chickens. I’ll give you my opinion.

I use tree branches, mainly because an ice storm gave me free material when I needed it. My tree branches vary in size from maybe 4” diameter down to 1-1/2” diameter. My chickens each have their favorite place to roost on them, some on the larger size and some on the smaller. The diameter does not seem to bother them. Location in the coop is more important. The ones higher in the pecking order get the favorite places. When it is cold they sleep crowded together; when it is hot, they spread out.

It does not get as cold here as you will see, the lowest most winters here is just a few degrees below zero Fahrenheit. I have noticed that when my chickens scrunch down in the winter on the roosts and fluff out their feathers to trap some insulating air their toes disappear under their feathers, even if they are on the smaller parts of my branches.

I put in a separate roost, a bit lower down and separated horizontally from the main tree branch roosts to help with integration. I used a 2x4 with the narrow side up. When my chickens sleep on this, their toes disappear under their feathers too. From what I’ve seen in my coop, I feel the need for them to have a wide support to keep their feet warm is greatly exaggerated, yet you will find plenty of people on this forum that strongly believe otherwise.

I tried an experiment once. I put some boards up at the same level and position as my roosts with the flat side up for about a month to see if they preferred them. My chickens stayed on the tree branches. I credit that to chickens being creatures of habit. They were used to sleeping on the tree branches and that was good enough for them. Chickens don’t usually like change. If they had been used to boards, they would have probably ignored the tree branches.

A whole lot of people on this forum have 2x4’s with the flat side up. I have not seen any posts where they see any foot problems. I do see lots of posts where chickens are sleeping on a totally flay surface by choice, a lot wider than a 2x4 flat side.

In my opinion, it doesn’t matter. You can use tree branches. You can use a 2x4 with either side up. They all work. In my opinion, people care about this a whole lot more than the chickens do.

If you do use sawn lumber, I suggest you round the edges whether the wide side or narrow side is up. That’s not to make it all that much more comfortable for the chickens’ feet to grip, but to get rid of splinters. I just hit it a few times with sandpaper.

Welcome to the forum. Hopefully you'll stick around enough to see that we usually have different opinions on about everything. That's mainly because we keep them in a whole lot of different circumstances and different things work. There is hardly ever one right way to do something for all of us where every other way is wrong.

 

[Hokum Coco]

POOP BOARDS are the "BEST" addition yet. Handles well over ½ of the poop in my set up keeps ammonia smell in check 3½" below roost excellent for catching eggs laid through the night (roost are in cups for easier removal and cleaning). I recently friction fit a piece of vinyl flooring over my poop board.it makes clean up even easier; Pop out; Scrap; Hose; Pop in.

Winter months even easier flex over compost bin DONE!

Nest boxes
In my nest boxes I fold a feed bag to fit (nest boxes are 1 ft³). When a bag gets soiled; fold a new one; pop out the soiled; pop in the new. Feed bags are a nylon mesh bag frozen poop just peels off in below freezing temperatures and just flakes off in summer when left out in the sun to bake and dry.

Easy peasy!.