Roosting

[RMBailes]

My chickens are roosting on top of their eggs boxes instead of the roosting area we made for them. I hate to wake up in the morning and clean all the poop, how can I encourage them to roost where I want? Thanks!

 

[BarnyardChaos]

Might be other, better suggestions coming, but what I had to do: I put a barrier around the areas where I did not want them to roost. I fashioned a piece of tarp attached across the top, that I could roll up during the day and let down in the evening, held in place by bungee cords and a few bricks. It took quite awhile, but the only birds who roost in or on their nesting boxes now are the broodies or fearful ones.

 

[Mrs. K]

I pile things on top of the nest boxes that are hard to roost on, round works best. But I rather like the above mentioned idea of a tarp that can be rolled up or down.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is the poop in the nests or just on top? I put my in-coop brooder under the main roosts and use the top of the brooder as a droppings board. I put a "juvenile roost" that helps with integrating juveniles over my nests and use the tops of the nests as a droppings board. To each their own but I personally don't see the big problem as long as the poop is not in the nests.

One possible solution may be to remove the tops of your nests and reinstall them at a sharp slope, too steep for them to perch there. I would remove the current tops as I would not want to create a space where mice would be safe from chickens. Mommy Mouse might find that a good place to raise a family.

Chickens often like to sleep in the highest place available. I'm not sure your roosts are higher, at least one of them. If they are higher you could go down there after dark and physically move them from the top of the nests to your roosts. It may take a while but if you consistently do that they should get the message.

 

[nuthatched]

You might want to raise your roosts, the nest box is higher than the roosts so they gravitate to that.

 

[Farmers Chicken Farm]

Is the poop in the nests or just on top? I put my in-coop brooder under the main roosts and use the top of the brooder as a droppings board. I put a "juvenile roost" that helps with integrating juveniles over my nests and use the tops of the nests as a droppings board. To each their own but I personally don't see the big problem as long as the poop is not in the nests.

One possible solution may be to remove the tops of your nests and reinstall them at a sharp slope, too steep for them to perch there. I would remove the current tops as I would not want to create a space where mice would be safe from chickens. Mommy Mouse might find that a good place to raise a family.

Chickens often like to sleep in the highest place available. I'm not sure your roosts are higher, at least one of them. If they are higher you could go down there after dark and physically move them from the top of the nests to your roosts. It may take a while but if you consistently do that they should get the message.

I’ve been thinking of designing a coop this way, with poop boards over some set back nesting boxes.

How is it working for you? Are you glad you designed it this way? Would you do it again in a new coop? What improvements would you make if doing it again?

 

[Folly's place]

Our roosts are higher than the nest boxes, which is very helpful. We do have a problem with some birds wanting to roost on the top of the boxes, and it's because the tops aren't slanted enough, like yours. It's a mess, and 'someday', maybe this year at last, we will fix our nest box tops to fix it.
Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’ve been thinking of designing a coop this way, with poop boards over some set back nesting boxes.

How is it working for you? Are you glad you designed it this way? Would you do it again in a new coop? What improvements would you make if doing it again?

Over the nests was not my original design for the main roosts. Over the built-in brooder was. But I was having problems with juveniles sleeping in the nests when integrating as the adults would not let them on the main roosts, so I put a juvenile roost lower than the main roosts, horizontally separated by a few feet, and higher than my nests. The logical place to do that in my coop was over the nests.

I started out with a lower level of nests 48" along the wall, then over time put two nests, each a 16" cube, on top of that. So the top was not one continuous board, that made it hard to scrape. That's the one thing I'd change, cut one piece of plywood so there were not spaces for poop to fall through that I couldn't get at easily.

The nests were 16" deep so the top was only 16" wide, not the recommended 24" wide for droppings boards. That means some poop could drop to the coop floor in front of the nests. It did not fall in the nests, just on the floor in front of them. I didn't consider that to be a problem. My coop was dry enough and that area typically got scratched up by the chickens so it was mixed in. In some coops that could be a problem.

I also did not set the roost 12" from the wall as typically recommended. Closer to 10". It was for juveniles (a little smaller) and if a little poop got on the wall I didn't worry about that. It's not going to build up enough to stay wet and stink on the wall. It's a chicken coop and chickens poop. A little dried poop doesn't bother me. It would some people.

I did not want to extend that droppings board to 24" wide, concerned that I'd bump my head against the edge when collecting eggs from the top nests. I'd have probably learned to not do that after a few times but the poop on the coop floor never became enough of a problem for me to want to fix it.

Would I do this again if I built a new coop? If my goals and management methods were the same, yes. I prefer the main roosts to be over the built-in brooder, wide enough for two rows of roosts. I consider using the area above the nests as roosts to be an efficient use of space.

As an aside, I would have preferred they juveniles use the tops of the nests themselves to sleep on, they had two flat 16" squares available. But they did not start sleeping up there until I installed a 2x4 roost on edge. I don't know why. As you can see from other posts, other people have their chickens sleeping on top of the nests. Just goes to show you can never tell what they will do.