SUCCESS!! (and a mild panic attack)

[6of6chicks]

Hi BYC! My girls are 6 weeks old, and for the past week I have been trying to get them to roost on their perch rather than bed down on the floor. I've been going out a few hours after dark with a flashlight to spy on them (and see where everyone is sleeping), and then picking them up and putting each one on the perch. Then I go out there before dawn with a flashlight (obsessive, I know!) to see who stayed put.

This morning...Success!! Everyone was on the perch, and judging by the line of poop on the floor they had been there all night!

One, however, gave me a mild panic attack. Last night...6 birds. This morning...5 birds. No signs of a break in. Frantic searching with the flashlight. I finally found her after turning on the lights and opening up the coop. She was all the way up on the ledge of the vent just under the highest point of the roof - a good foot & a half ABOVE the perch!

I swear, every day one of them does something that makes me say, "Well, it didn't occur to me that they would do THAT!" I wanted them to roost off the floor - guess I got my wish!

 

[iwiw60]

Yes, they astound me every day! You are along a lot further than I am...my 4 are still sleeping on the floor of the coop. I have GOT to start the regimen you did to get their little "light bulbs" to turn on that the roost is where they are to sleep....wish me luck!

 

[msw1208]

The light bulb I the coop has be he greatest thing I ever tried. I was trying to catch my girls before bed and when they were starting to get sleepy and it still was quite a task to catch them. My heat lamp is on a solar sensor that the darling boyfriend got home. They are now religious in going in their coop. But I still haven't seen the girls roost.

 

[El Paso Linda]

My silkies do not roost, they sleep all bunched up together on the coop floor. The coop is elevated. The Old English game bird and the 2 Frizzells perch as far up in the rafters as they can get, all bunched up together. My ducks sleep on the floor in their coop and the quail sleep in their straw covered elevated coop on the floor.