Sleeping in Nesting Boxes After Move to New Coop…

[Henrie]

Hello! We recently moved our flock of 6 (one Roo) to a new coop. The coop is 2 feet wider, and the run gives them more space as well. But three out of the six of the hens are now sleeping in the three nesting boxes. I do think one of the hens had starting to sleep in a nesting box in the old coop during her molt, and also the nesting boxes in the old coop were about the same height as one of the roosts. The new roosts in the new coop are higher than the nesting boxes.

I didn’t know if I should pull them out and put them on the roosts at night, or if I should give them a couple of weeks to acclimate to their new space? I don’t want to upset them further while getting used to a new space.
The new roost bars are wider and rope wrapped, so maybe the three of them don’t like that those are different.
Any thoughts on what to do would be helpful! Thank you!

 

[rosemarythyme]

Were the old roosts wrapped? Any reason why you've wrapped them?

I would block the nests at dusk so they don't have the option of jumping into them (and uncover once it's fully dark if you still have hens laying), and do it until they understand that nests are off limits. If you have a bird that's molting heavily they might be resistant but once they get over the hump they shouldn't want to sleep in the nests any longer.

 

[Debbie292d]

We have silkies and a couple of them persist in sleeping in the nests. So much so, I switched to putting horse bedding pellets in all of the nest boxes. Some they don't sleep in, I put a very thin layer of straw on top of the pellets.

At least the pellets absorb the poop, so the hen coming by to lay an egg later in the day lays a clean one.

 

[Shadrach]

I think sleeping in nest boxes is a common enough occurrence during moult for it not to be something to worry about. I've had hens use nest boxes for a number of reasons; bickering at roost time, junior hens getting pecked at roost time, recovering from an injury and old age for examples.
I'm not a fan of wrapping roost bars, mainly due because parasites can hid between the covering and the base material.
I clean daily so droppings in nest boxes isn't really an issue. Any eggs contaminated with droppings are easy enough to clean so I don't worry about that either.
Chickens take a while to adapt to new conditions and I would let them sleep where they feel most comfortable, at least for a settling in period. Later if this becomes a habit with no reasonable cause then placing the hens on a roost bar a bit after dark can help.