Sleeping in the nest boxes in an A frame

[Wizbop]

We've got an A frame tractor coop. I know that chickens are supposed to roost. Is there a physiological reason why they should? My girls appear to be sleeping either cuddled together or individually in the nesting boxes. Is this okay? There's usually not poop in the nesting boxes. I can try to get my hubby to lift up their roost a bit, but their coop is not that high inside (floor to ceiling). I think it's just not high enough for them. Opinions?

 

[teach1rusl]

Yeah...that is the problem with Aframes. Sleeping in the nest boxes generally results in poop in the nest box, since chickens poop a lot overnight while roosting. But you're saying you're not getting poop in the nest boxes...

Poopy eggs is really the only reason I'm aware of as to why you don't want birds sleeping in there. In an A frame, other than creating covered nest boxes UNDER the roost (on the ground basically), there's not much room to work with to make sure the roosts are higher...

 

[ADozenGirlz]

I agree, poop in the nest box makes for dirty eggs unless you're totally vigilant about cleaning them out every morning.

 

[nancypo]

My girls like to sleep in the nest boxes, but they poop in a corner, so not a problem...

 

[patman75]

I'm dealing with the same problem. Use pine shaving in the nest boxes to dry out the poop, you will have cleaner eggs. You can block the nest boxes at night and then open them in the morning (which is a hassel). I thought about changing one of the ends on the A frame bottom to be a nest box and then remove all the nest boxes in the top and change them to a roost.

 

[Wizbop]

I've only got three chickens and only one sleeps in a nesting box at night. The others appear to sleep where they are supposed to (based on the amt of droppings I am finding). I just pick the droppings out in the morning when I let them out. Our eggs (knock on wood) have been 99% clean so far, which is good. We do use pine shavings and they are the really fine ones, too. I love our coop and it's design. And, the birds seem happy. I guess we'll just deal w/ it.

 

[gryeyes]

I tried to put a roost in the A-Frame coop I built, but there wasn't enough head room for the chickens to like the roosts. I ended up placing the roost bar practically on the floor of the upstairs "lodging" section, just for the chickens to have something to perch on, should they so desire to do so. Mine also slept in the nest boxes, but there really was very little poop problem. It's almost as if they knew they needed to use just one corner of the nest box, and they really didn't poop all that much - one night's worth was really easy to scoop out with some pine shavings before they laid their eggs later in the day.

 

[Wizbop]

Linda, we have the same sort of arrangement w/ our roosting bar in our coop.

Would you guys believe that I found two of our girls ON TOP of our coop roosting last night? I guess they're trying to tell me something. I put them in the coop and they came out and went and did it again. Hmmm. . . Eventually I had to put them in for the night because well, I wanted to see them this morning.

 

[Keri78]

I have two A frames ...I would love for my Hubby to lift the whole thing off the ground a couple of feet(nest box too!) then it would be taller thus I would have the option of adding a roosting pole and the nesting box could soley be used for egg laying. Mine are over a year old now so they need to be re-done anyway. I want to replace the chicken wire with hardware cloth and add a door to make it easier to get into. It would also need to be roofed to provide shelter.

 

[Lydia&Andrew]

Our four girls are all sleeping in the nest box. I thought this was maybe because they were young (16 & 20 weeks) and didn't know about sleeping on their perches yet. The only problem with this is the poops in the morning!! As they are not laying yet I suppose this isn't too bad and we do clean them out early so when they do FINALLY lay it shouldn't be a problem but I did think they would automatically sleep on their perches at night.