What is the point of roosting?

[Jedi Knight]

Hi

My wife and I just got three chickens, white leghorn crossed with Australopes. We have an awesome house (at least we think so), and have two roosting perches, one indoors and another outdoors. My question is, what really is the point of getting your chickens to roost at night? We read on website things like "If your chickens are not roosting then go outside and place them on their roosting perch", but if ours don't do this by themselves, why do we have to make them?

There seems to be alot to be read about that implies its important, but why would it be?

Do you need to keep them from sleeping in the laying box?, as an precautionary anti-broody technique?

Cheers!!!

 

[yotetrapper]

Hmm. Got me thinking here. I think the "point" of roosting was and is the protection it offers from predators. If my chickens wanted to go into the coop at night, but sleep on the floor, I reckon I'd let them. But I do try to make sure they are IN the coop, not outside. Once they settle in for the night they tend to stay put, young ones will stay outside in a downpour if it starts after they're settled in for the night, why I try to get mine in at night.

 

[jenjscott]

The main problem with sleeping in the nest box is that it makes for very dirty eggs.

 

[ThreeBoysChicks]

When they are sleeping, it is vary easy to sneak up on them and a Fox, dog or weasel, would love more than anything to eat chickens. Roosting is sleeping and the best place to sleep is in a safe place. I will say I have never had a chicken that did not roost on the roosts. On the contrary, they always want to roost at the highest point possible. For example, in my barn, they fly from one thing to another to get on to a 2 X 6 Board that runs at about 8 ft from the floor. For some reason, they love it there.

I have various sizes of dowel perches that start at 2 inches off the ground for babies that I use in my brooder. They seem to like to roost from a very early age.

 

[Jedi Knight]

Thanks for all of your replies

We live in Tasmania, Australia. There are no predators in the area we live in, except for cats which our house is not going to let in. Rodents would be the only issue, but rats large enough to worry a chicken don't live in our area.

Its our first night of chickens, and just checking on them then, they are fine. We did go to the effort to move them into the roosting box and will continue to do so to get cleaner eggs.

 

[bills]

I found that having a roost with a dropping board under it was a great way to keep the coop a lot cleaner. As they are out almost all day in the run, the majority of the time they spend in the hen house is at roost, thus the majority of poop is dropped. It's a simple matter of cleaning the dropping board each day to keep the house smelling and looking better.

I'm glad they roost..

 

[flip9109]

the worst is having some sleeping under the roosting ones.