Wow looks like there is a lot of great lessons learned.
Another thing I learned is that my CX needed to be forced outside the coop. I found it much easier to put them outside with a feeder on the other side of the yard and make them walk over there, they were also very afraid of treats. They have, thankfully, grown out of that and have become much more active as they've gotten older.
Mine don't need to be forced...actually, they are flying at the doors trying to GET out each morning. I am currently trying to upload a video to YouTube that documents that right now....taking a long time for some reason. My CX have learned that the food out there is much more tasty than any food they get inside the coop and they will stay out foraging all day and some will only return to the coop when it's almost too dark to see.
The key is to not feed free choice...they will eat whatever is easiest if they are trained to do so from an early age. I feed once a day, towards evening, and there is still feed in the feeder when I let them out the next morning. They prefer their foraged foods to anything I offer and they will forage all over 3 acres and rarely do they take a break. These CX are currently roosting on a platform that is nearly 3 ft. high and they can get even higher than that...they also roost on their water bucket that is higher and one made it to the top of my cattle panel coop the other day and was walking all over the roof of it. It is over 5 1/2 ft. tall.
Mine were foraging all day and it was 91 degrees in the shade here...they were out foraging in full sun.
Here's that video...pardon the poor quality, I was doing this with my digital camera and it's the first time I've used that feature. I'm not much of a narrator...
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