Why won't my chickens use their roosting bar

[Farmer Mike S]

My chickens are 11 weeks old and the roosting bar was installed 2 weeks ago. I did see one go on it once during the day but they don't sleep on it. The roosting bar is about 15 inches tall and 8 inches from the wall, and it's about 4 feet long. Its a wooden broom handle. 2 of my 5 chickens sleep on the coop door at night when its open, which is only an inch lower than the bar, and I have to move them inside. The other 3, along with the 2 I moved inside, sleep on the ground right by the door. Im concerned I have a problem because I believe they should be using it by now

 

[ChickenCanoe]

They use a roost when they are ready. It could be any age. A broom handle isn't wide enough. Chickens aren't really tree dwelling perching birds. It needs to be at least 2 inches wide. I like to use a 2X3 with the wide part up.

 

[Ridgerunner]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/784223/when-do-chicks-start-to-roost

Check my post in this thread.

 

[renardsubtil]

I had this problem too. You can see from my pictures that I was using a closet rack dowel. I'd set the chickens on it in the evenings and they would hop down eventually and pile into the nesting box.

I ended up boarding up the nesting area at night just to keep them out of it and then took some forum advice on making my roosting "stick" wider. This seemed to do the trick. Here's a few pix, you can see that my new roosting stick is just a piece of slimmed down fence board with the wider flat side facing up.

I eventually moved it over a bit more so they birds would poop more into the sand area....

 

[Chicken Wanter]

Why do chickens need roosting bars?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Good question. I like the way your mind works. Question everything to find out why.

Chickens instinctively like to sleep on the highest thing available. They poop a lot at night. If your nests are the highest thing available, they just might spend the night on there and leave a lot of poop. Then when they lay eggs in there you get poopy eggs. The reason they need roosts is so you can control where they spend the night and deposit that poop.

 

[aggiemae]

Small flocks of chicks, especially those that are handled everyday will often be less fearful and sleep piled together on the coop floor for longer than those that get less human attention. At some point they all go up on the roost. What usually happens is that one chick eventually "discovers" the roost and the others just follow.

 

[Farmer Mike S]

Small flocks of chicks, especially those that are handled everyday will often be less fearful and sleep piled together on the coop floor for longer than those that get less human attention. At some point they all go up on the roost.  What usually happens is that one chick eventually "discovers" the roost and the others just follow. 

This thread is pretty old, they're about 8 months old now. The weird thing though is that 2 use it but the other 3 lay on the floor by the door

 

[3chickchicks]

Mine were 17 weeks old before they started using the roost and they didn't use it until I added some 15 week old birds. They started, I guess, as a way to stay away from the new birds. That backfired though because just a few days later, the younger birds followed them up to the roost, lol

 

[ChickenCanoe]

8 months is pretty old. How high is the roost, is there a lower roost or ladder to help them up and what breed are they? All those things make a difference.
I have some roosters that never had access to a roost and at 25 weeks, when given access, are still on the floor after a week with hens roosting.