when should I introduce roosting?

[Tansie]

My little babies are four weeks old today and I've just started leaving them outside for several hours at a time. They still spend the nights inside because here in England the weather is never predictable. They seem to be loving it and always come in exhausted, but I noticed that after giving them a mini bench to play on while outside, they spend a lot of time napping on it around 6/7pm. They all get up and bunch together and sleep like they would when they are inside in the brooder. I was just wondering at what age I should introdue a roost for them to sleep on? Because they seem taken by sleeping on the bench, but when I tried to give them low wooden poles to roost on inside a few weeks ago they kicked the hay and wood shavings over them and slept on top of the mini mountain they created! I've never raised chicks before so I would be interested to know what others do. I have caught them napping on the gap between their brooder cages before but they won't spend the night there

On the bench:

Napping between cages/sleeping on the floor:

 

[GitaBooks]

Adorable chicks!

My chicks start showing interest in perching around 3 weeks of age. I start with a piece of fire-wood from our fire-wood pile or a brick. I give them logs and thin branches to practice their balance and let them play.


Sedgewick and Blue near their perch and log

 

[azygous]

Four weeks is a bit young to expect chicks to be interested in roosting. And do not confuse roosting with perching. Roosting is sleeping on a perch all night long. Perching is intermittent during the day, and you can introduce perches of all sorts to your chicks right away. I hung a swing that my chicks love to perch on, enjoying the movement under them.
When integrating chicks with an older flock, it's important to offer perches of all sorts as an escape from the occasional brutality of the pecking order, such as the swing you see here, as well as stumps of all sizes.


When my chicks are around five to six weeks old, I train them to go into the coop at night on their own and in the process, I also train them to roost. I take advantage of their natural instinct to want to sleep under cover at night to go into the coop, and roosting is just an extension of that instinct.

It's an easy process using treats to lure them into the coop initially, and they are going in on their own within a few days.

 

[Folly's place]

When I have broody raised chicks in the flock, they start roosting with mom as early as four weeks of age. Incubator chicks take longer to figure it out, but yours should have roost space available very soon. A ladder type roost works well for the chicks, and as they get braver and larger, they will be ready to roost higher up. My roosts are three, four and eight feet of the ground, and they like to be higher up as they mature. The ladder roost is about eight inches, eighteen, inches, and two feet up. Mary