Sleeping in nest boxes

[gryeyes]

I've recently added 2 laying pullets to my flock of adolescent chickens. The newcomers have their own coop (an A-Frame with living quarters upstairs and covered pen beneath it). I put a double next box into it for them, but the new girls are sleeping in them. They laid eggs the first two days they were with me, but then they stopped. The eggs were laid kinda just wherever they happened to be, I think. One was upstairs - probably before they figgered out how to come down the ramp - and the other two were downstairs on the ground. (One was tucked under the ramp.) I'm not concerned about the laying stoppage, really; I think the move may have been a bit stressful, AND I don't provide extra light for them, as their former flock-mom had where they lived before.

Honestly, I think they're adorable in the nest boxes, but I keep reading that they're supposed to sleep on roosts, not in the next boxes.

Perhaps the tree branch roosts I so lovingly installed (won't these be cool!) are not to their liking. There's not a lot of space inside the A-Frame, but there is a low roost just above the litter and a higher roost up pretty close to the inside top of the A-Frame coop.

Anybody got any suggestions for me? Is it so wrong to let them sleep in their nest boxes? It's like they have their own bedrooms right next to each other......

 

[Ms.FuzzyButts]

I don't know if it's SO wrong or not. But I have about 4 out of my bunch that sleep in the box rather than on the roost. I don't like it because of the poo. I do run them out of the nests when I lock them up for the night, but they just go right back once I am gone. I don't really think it is a big deal other than me having to change the bedding more often.

 

[fordmommy]

It's just a bad habit. And IMO may make them more likely to go broody on you. Once you install perches, you'll probably have to show them were to sleep again.