Roosting options/ideas pleas

[KatkyCampbell]

Hi BYC peeps! Firstly, I just want to thank you all for the help and advice I have received here! I feel so good having a place to discuss things. I am new to this and feel like I don't know what I am doing, so thank you!

Ok, so this weekend we built on this extension (the enclosed white walled portion..) for our flock. A few things to note:
A) We live in San Diego (actually El Cajon, a suburb about 25 miles in from the ocean) so our temps are mild
B) We have a flock of 7 right now - 2 older hens (3+ yrs), 2 pullets (20 weeks) and 3 babies (12 weeks)
C) The hens and pullets are integrated already. The "babies" are in a cage inside of the big pen

I need advice on how to set this up. What we want is for this to be where they roost at night and sleep. Our two hens happily roost in their original coop (you can see it in the photo, the larger red and white coop) an use the nesting box in there too. BUT the pullets sleep on that roof and poop alllll over, and when we let the babies loose (I am still very nervous about that!) I don't have a good place for them either.

Ideally, I would like ALL of them to sleep in this new space, but it is not a big deal if the older ones wish to stay as they are, but the younger ones, I want them to roost in here. What are your thoughts and experiences? I always thought they liked small enclosed spaces to sleep so we even made one for the pullets and put them in it every night and every night they have hopped out and jumped up onto the roof of the other coop I have thought about maybe a shelf up higher with a ladder to make their way up and then maybe some lower long perches. I realize they most likely won't all snuggle on one perch (that would be my dream, but I realize this probalby won't happen! LOL) but I would like them all to find a happy place here. So any pictures of your set ups would be WONDERFUL! Or if you think this is really too open and exposed for it to work as a sleeping area let me know. It never gets colder than 45 here really so I don't think we need to worry about them being too cold.

Oh and before anyone mentions it...yes, we have heard from many of you that we need to replace the chicken wire with the hardware cloth. As you can see from the size of our pen it will take a lot of hardware cloth and we will need to add some reinforcement framing. So this is next on our project list!!

Thank you for all of your help and advice!

 

[DobieLover]

I'm not sure where you heard that chickens like to sleep in small spaces. They don't.
They like well ventilated spaces with lots of fresh air.
It's a pipe dream that all your chickens are going to cuddle anywhere. Sorry. They are brutal at roost time.
I'd use a U-shaped roost over poop boards similar to what is shown below. That will maximize the amount of roosting in your space.
I'd remove the little coops and put more things to do in the open part of the coop after the HC gets installed.

 

[KatkyCampbell]

I'm not sure where you heard that chickens like to sleep in small spaces. They don't.
They like well ventilated spaces with lots of fresh air.
It's a pipe dream that all your chickens are going to cuddle anywhere. Sorry. They are brutal at roost time.
I'd use a U-shaped roost over poop boards similar to what is shown below. That will maximize the amount of roosting in your space.
I'd remove the little coops and put more things to do in the open part of the coop after the HC gets installed.
View attachment 2370500

This is a great plan! Then I can place some nesting boxes under there also. about how high do you think these are? 3 feet or so? Is there anything on the poop boards? Or just leave em empty and then scrape the poop of when cleaning up? Thank you so much!

 

[CinnaBun]

Love the open concept!

Have you seen this thread? Read through to the end to see modifications.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/texas-coop-build-pic-heavy.1371038/

 

[KatkyCampbell]

Love the open concept!

Have you seen this thread? Read through to the end to see modifications.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/texas-coop-build-pic-heavy.1371038/

oh thank you! That was sooooo helpful! Very similar to what we have started here. I like the easy design as we have NO idea what we are doing LOL and we are kind of making it up as we go. The ideas on this post are something we can easily handle and will make our chicks so happy! Thank you!

 

[Alaskan]

I'm not sure where you heard that chickens like to sleep in small spaces. They don't.
They like well ventilated spaces with lots of fresh air.
It's a pipe dream that all your chickens are going to cuddle anywhere. Sorry. They are brutal at roost time.
I'd use a U-shaped roost over poop boards similar to what is shown below. That will maximize the amount of roosting in your space.
I'd remove the little coops and put more things to do in the open part of the coop after the HC gets installed.
View attachment 2370500

X2

As to height, since there is a long flight path to the white coop portion you could probably get away with a pretty high poop tray and perch.. 4 feet high would be fine, still be easy to scrape clean, and be tall enough to easily put nest boxes underneath.

For a 4 foot high poop shelf I would put a step at 2 feet, or I would put in 2 steps one at about 1.5 feet high and one at 3 feet high if you have some super fat clumsy ladies.
A ramp works too of course.

 

[HuffleClaw]

My orps were so heavy I had to use a broomstick Here is my legbar girl showing it off