We have 3 Welsummer bantam chicks that are coming up to 10 weeks old. They've been sleeping in a kennel with the mum who sat on the eggs, but mum is obviously keen to go back to the regular roost at night now. The problem is that the other hens are being quite nasty to her now, and chase her out when she tries to go in. My question is, at what age should the chicks start roosting at night? When it's time we'll remove the worst offenders for a while from the main roost to give them a bit more of a chance of being accepted at night. Thanks!
I don't know the correct answer for this but we have roosting poles in our brooder when the chicks are about two weeks old....they are about 2 inches off of the brooder floor at first....but I think it helps them learn to roost....and it is so funny to watch them hop up and down on them and scoot each other off....
Ours didn't actually take that long. We let them sleep on a branch inside a box from about a month of age, and moved to the proper roosts in the coop shortly before they start laying. I guess whenever is fine, as soon as their legs are strong enough I think they actually prefer sleeping on the roost But then again, mine weren't raised by a broody hen.
I have an ecoglow brooder, they started to roost on it as soon as they were big enough to hop onto it, which was about 3 days old!
Wow!! I thought that until a certain age it could damage their feet if they were roosting on bars that were designed for bigger girls. That's why I was a bit worried. I guess maybe once they're no longer sleeping underneath their mum it means they're ready for the next stage.
Our 1st clutch of chicks prefered to sleep in a pile on the floor of the coop until they were 8 weeks old - they had tried out the roost during they day but still slept in a heap at night. Then suddenly they started roosting at night all by themselves without intervention from me. The 2nd clutch started on the floor at 6 weeks and ended up on the roost by the end of that week. I think it depends on how high the roost is and who else is up there.
