Last weekend I finally finished the coop for my 6 quickly-growing 8-week old Best Reds. We put them in their new home on Sunday after dinner. For the roost, I attached a 2x4 stud across the length of the coop at 36" high. My wife thought there was no way in hell that they could make it up there themselves and wanted to put an over-turned recycling bin in there for them to jump on to get to the roost. I said, nah, they're birds, they'll make it. So an hour or so later I went out to check them and one of them was on the roost and the rest were piled on top of each other in a corner. After chuckling to myself and muttering "silly birds" I placed them on the roost. They were all still on the roost the next 8 times I checked on them (
). The next night two of them were on the roost, so I placed the other 4 up there. the next night 4 of them were on the roost and 2 of them were... missing! Uh oh. After a quick scan I realized that two of them had made it up to the top piece of the side wall framing (the walls are 6 feet high). AFter another chuckle and calling the kids out to show them what the silly birds were doing (and a quick, I told you so to my wife), I just left them there. Last night three of them were jammed up on the top of the wall. I just left them there again. But I began to wonder, should I do something to prevent them from doing this?
