Will they roost on the other side?

[gale65]

We have a small coop and a lot of chickens right now. We are planning to rehome half of them but I am secretly hoping dh offers to build a new coop or build onto the existing one so I can keep all of them. So anyway the roost is plenty big enough for all of them right now but it will be getting too small before long. There is a 2nd place to roost but they never get on it. If the first roost gets too small will they use the 2nd one? The main roost is a 2 x 4 but the other one, which was originally the shelf in front of the nest boxes (which are now blocked) is a flat board thing and is about 3 or 4 inches below the 2 x 4 (on the opposite wall).

 

[bustermommy]

The top chickens in the pecking order will get the preferred roost and the lower ones will get the other one. YMMV.

 

[oaklandmama]

We had the exact same problem, but eventually they all spread out and figured it all out. For a couple weeks all eight of ours were crowding onto one branch, I even found one sitting *on top* of another chicken one morning.