I have never raised chickens before, so I still have more questions! My little flock (4, soon to be 3 since she is really a he) is 14 weeks old. They are doing really well, and are happy in their home, spending all day in the grass and dirt, or perching on the sawhorse they adopted during construction of the coop. Yesterday I added nesting boxes (2) to the coop. What concerns me is that they never, ever go up the ramp to the coop except to go to bed. The way it is set up is that there is the main structure, which is a roofed A-Frame (old swingset) completely walled with hardware cloth, dirt floor, a wooden platform where the feeder is, and a small cubby with shavings on the floor where they like to hang out for naps or get out of the rain. Above the platform is the sleeping quarters, accessed by a long ramp. The A-Frame structure has a people door which I leave open all day as long as someone is home. This lets them come and go into the backyard, where they can find grass, weeds, dirt, trees etc. We do have a moveable fence which keeps them from going around the whole yard and getting on the patio.
Since they never go upstairs except to sleep, I am worried that they won't go up there to lay in the nest. It seems like a lot of other people's coops are large rooms and the chickens go in and out all day, so the nest boxes are available easily. Am I just worried for no reason?
I'll add some pics to illustrate the layout.
(these are during construction, before the ramp to the upstairs was added)
Since they never go upstairs except to sleep, I am worried that they won't go up there to lay in the nest. It seems like a lot of other people's coops are large rooms and the chickens go in and out all day, so the nest boxes are available easily. Am I just worried for no reason?
I'll add some pics to illustrate the layout.
