What time do your chickens put themselves to bed?

[GC-Raptor]

My chicks are 6wks old. They sometimes gather in their roosting area inside in the middle of the day. This is when it's cloudy or looks like bad weather. Is this normal?

Sure, at that age they are timid, still learning about the world and the dangers. GC

 

[BusyStFarmer]

10 minutes before dark. They get every second outside that they can.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Just to add a different twist to this, related to the visibility thing. I have multiple coops, and in one separate coop, I have two cream legbar hens and a rooster. One of the hens is visually impaired from ocular Mareks. She has adapted (and her rooster is very sweet and protective/supportive of her), but she goes to roost much earlier. And because of that, her sister follows her and goes to roost early as well. The rooster stays up a little bit to "keep watch", but then he goes in early as well. They are always all tucked up in there almost an hour earlier than the other chickens many evenings.

- Ant Farm

 

[IZZYBELLA]

It changes depending on the time of year... in winter they are roosted at 4pm. In summer they are out until 8pm. All depends on the sun!

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Spring, summer and fall the chickens hit the coop approximately an hour prior to sunset to sunset. The ones who want to roost the highest go in first. The guineas stay out almost during the twilight almost until dusk.

Winter they're locked in 24/7 so they don't have a choice...lol.

 

[DownInTheCoop]

Mine are as soon as it starts getting to the dusk part of the day, around an hour before the sun is due to completely go down.

 

[AllynTal]

My chicks are 6wks old. They sometimes gather in their roosting area inside in the middle of the day. This is when it's cloudy or looks like bad weather. Is this normal?

That is quite normal, especially if you don't have older chickens for them to look to for behavior cues. Chickens like routine and sameness. When something is different, they look for security. If the weather changes and bad weather is moving in, they want to go somewhere they feel safe because they haven't figured out what the change means to their world yet.

 

[Shinnuk]

I have to put my sillies to bed or they yell and make a big issue till someone tucks them in.

 

[Magnolia7330]

Just to add a different twist to this, related to the visibility thing. I have multiple coops, and in one separate coop, I have two cream legbar hens and a rooster. One of the hens is visually impaired from ocular Mareks. She has adapted (and her rooster is very sweet and protective/supportive of her), but she goes to roost much earlier. And because of that, her sister follows her and goes to roost early as well. The rooster stays up a little bit to "keep watch", but then he goes in early as well. They are always all tucked up in there almost an hour earlier than the other chickens many evenings.

- Ant Farm

That's very sweet. Nice of her flock to help take care of her like that.

 

[ChickenFajita6]

I am not sure when they would go in given their own choice. Our coop is in the back part of our yard and we don't have any light back there, so we go and shut it up between 7:30-8 while WE can still see, lol. The main issue I have is that most days they all seem to have gone into the coop already but once they spot me headed their way they run back into the run, so it's a game getting them shoo'd back in to shut the door (I have to go in the run to close their coop door).

Right now my girls are 2 1/2 months and they don't seem to be sleeping on the roost bar yet. They all pile into a back corner on the floor of the coop, and they fight over who gets to be in the furthest, most tight little corner (almost half hidden behind one of the 2x4's!). Once they get in their pile it's hard to tell there are even 6 of them there.
What's up with that? Are they scared?