Starting our flock - The good, the bad, the ugly

[Vltyler]

Welcome to BYC!!
Try wearing a headlamp when you go into the coop at night to place the little ones on the roost, then they can’t necessarily see as well.

I tried this last night and will continue to try it until they all settle on a roost.

 

[Vltyler]

My young chickens did this too, since they were still earning their place in the pecking order.

However, to help fix this, you need to manually place your young girls on the roosting bar at night, once it is dark out. The other hens won’t realize that the young ones are next to them, until the next day.
This will help all the chickens begin to live peacefully!

but remover, you might have to do this for a month or two until the young ones start to earn their place in the hierarchy.

We did last night, fingers crossed. Thanks!

 

[DobieLover]

We did last night, fingers crossed. Thanks!

That top roost is very close to the wall. The ladder roosts are close to each other such that birds on the lower rungs may get hit overnight with birds from the higher rungs.
You may want to start a new thread in the Coop & Run Construction Forum with pictures of the entire interior layout of your coop as well as a sketch as it appears you could make some modifications to the layout to improve it's function.
I'd also open up as much ventilation as possible.

 

[janiedoe]

Welcome! In addition to the advice that @DobieLover has given you, which is excellent by the way, your birds need room to "fly down" from the roost.
They typically won't take the steps down, but will fly down. My rule of thumb is a distance equal to the height of the roost plus an additional 18". Another words, if your roost is 3' from the floor, they need 4'6" from the roost to the opposite wall.
Your floor sleepers will get the hang of roosting soon.
Good luck to you.

 

[Briosafarm]

Usually others notice this right away, but if your coop is the 4 x 5 you posted, it's way too small for 11 chickens...more right for 5. The run dimensions (assuming it's all run and none of it taken up by the coop) is about right for 8 chickens. The pics of your hens inside look like the coop may be bigger, so maybe it's not really 4 x 5? But if it is, that could also be the reason some of them are nesting on the floor (too crowded.) Edited to add: I looked at your photos again and it looks as if a lot of the "run" is space under the coop...that makes the run *really* small, especially for the number of chickens you have.

 

[592667]

We did last night, fingers crossed. Thanks!

Great! Good luck!

 

[Vltyler]

That top roost is very close to the wall. The ladder roosts are close to each other such that birds on the lower rungs may get hit overnight with birds from the higher rungs.
You may want to start a new thread in the Coop & Run Construction Forum with pictures of the entire interior layout of your coop as well as a sketch as it appears you could make some modifications to the layout to improve it's function.
I'd also open up as much ventilation as possible.

The depth of the coop doesn’t show very well in this photo. And there are 2 windows that are open all night, not shown in this photo. The cross ventilation is great as our prevailing wind goes right through the coop. The top roost is 6 inches from the wall on the right out to about a foot from the wall on the left. The girls were 7 up top and 4 on the lower roosts when we left them for the night. The 4 on the bottom were on the 2 middle roosts to the right side and not under the other girls on top.

 

[Vltyler]

That top roost is very close to the wall. The ladder roosts are close to each other such that birds on the lower rungs may get hit overnight with birds from the higher rungs.
You may want to start a new thread in the Coop & Run Construction Forum with pictures of the entire interior layout of your coop as well as a sketch as it appears you could make some modifications to the layout to improve it's function.
I'd also open up as much ventilation as possible.

Top roost has been moved toward the middle of the coop. All of my girls are sleeping on the top roost now.

 

[Grandmas Coop]