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hedgehogsdad

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Hi,

I'm hoping that someone can help me as a relative newcomer to keeping chickens. Our 4 hens live in a proprietary chicken house (wooden, bought on the web) and are healthy and laying consistently. They seem happy with their lot and have a large field at their disposal. We enjoy them hugely, and are thinking of expanding our flock, hence my question. Rather than buy another house, I've converted a redundant kids' wooden playhouse. I've copied as many of the things which I've picked up from the other house, perch dimensions, nest box design etc., and am now keen to get them to "move house". The new house sits about 3 feet off the ground and has a home made ladder to help the girls get up. The ladder is 6 inches wide, solid and has frequent slats to give the hens good footholds. I've used corn to entice them up and they are all capable of climbing it.

What is the best way of getting them to make the move? should I simply lock the other house up or is subtlety a better option?

Thanks in advance
 
One way you might try is to move them to the new house after dark, when they are roosting and nicely asleep. Then they will sleep there and all wake up together in the new coop. Close up the old coop and if possible move it so it isn't where they expect it to be, or at least urn it round so the pophole isnt evident. The next night, watch to see that they do go into the new coop OK and 'help' them if necessary.
 
Hi Hedgehogsdad. Interesting question that as it happens. What Marigold says should work perfectly well, with perhaps a few lost hens wandering about on the next night to be rounded up. But there are alternatives.

I have observed many times that moving their coop too far results in them standing where it was and then looking for a tree or bush to roost in when it get very dark. They don't look around much and spot their coop and go over to it. 10 yards is probably the best they have managed. So they are spacially very aware but not too hot on recognition. If you locked the old coop they would all stand in front of it. If you removed it they would stand where it was. You need to remove the old coop and put the new one in exactly the same place. Alternatively move the old towards the new bit by bit and when alongside remove the old. Steps shouldn't be a problem at all. Their instinct is to move upwards as far as possible. We actually have steps like an open tread staircase and they take to them in seconds.
 
Thanks both. I've just been out and moved them to the new house and they seemed to settle fairly quickly. the door is shut, lets see what happens tomorrow.... I wonder where they will lay, I guess that's the first sign of where they see home as?

I'll keep you posted ....
 
Hi. Progress report. All worked as suggested and all four hens now put themselves to bed and lay in their new house. Thanks ever so much for the advice. Hedgehogsdad :D
 
So how did you do it? did you remove the old coop and put the new one in its place? Or did you move them to the new coop after roosting time? If the latter, what happened the next night? It would be very interesting to knbow how they got on. I thought what Chris said aboiut them standing where the old coop had been placed was very funny!
 
I just moved them after they had roosted in the old house for a couple of nights and then on the third night, locked the old house up. hey presto they settled down that night in the new one. I haven't moved the old house as I want to get some more hens and will use the old house to keep them separate until they establish their pecking order. Does that make sense?
 
Beekeepers have similar problems Marigold, the rule is you move a hive less than 3 feet or more than 3 miles.

I needed to move my hives from one end of the veg plot to the other, a distance of about 40 feet. If I remember correctly it took about 2 weeks to move a hive, 3 feet every 3 or 4 days. Then I had to repeat it with the other one. I still had a few bees buzzing around in a rather puzzled manner where the hive had been. I had to move them separately or else the bees from the hive (A) moved to a new "non-hive" location would have tried to get into hive (B) which would then be where (A) used to be.

You move a hive more than 3 miles because their foraging range is about a mile. Having learnt the new location of the hive and flown off to forage there is no danger of them foraging in a location they had flown to from the old hive site. If that did happen they would "autopilot" back to the original hive site - with disastrous results for the beekeeper.

It's great fun watching the newly hatched bees flying around the hive learning what it looks like and where it is.
 
That's interesting; I have about an acre of back garden where the chickens free range. Since having them I have moved their Eglu around constantly - often from one end of the garden to the other in one go; probably 25m or more? Fortunately I've never had any problem with them finding it again; it never occurred to me they wouldn't! Now I feel terrible! But it is a bright red blob in a big open space, so perhaps is easier for them to distinguish and recognize from a distance?
 
Hens certainly go for red and associate it with food- which is also why they are attracted to blood and will peck an injured bird, unfortunately. Also if there's only one coop, even hens aren't that stupid that they can't recognise it, surely?
 
Ours are Marigold and you've seen the size. Nearly dark it was and two just stood in the footprint of the coop looking lost. They came running over to me and I directed them to the run and put a light on inside the coop to get them in there. Fine the next day.
 
Very interesting about moving bees Margaid :-)17


We moved an ark about 20ft & the 2 hens that lived in it stood at the place it had been previously at bedtime for nearly a week :lol:
 
ncotb said:
Very interesting about moving bees Margaid :-)17


We moved an ark about 20ft & the 2 hens that lived in it stood at the place it had been previously at bedtime for nearly a week :lol:
Click to expand...

Like bees it is much easier to move poultry to where they can't see their last house. We got a swarm which took up residence in one of our neighbours walls, we had to move them about 5 miles down the road for about 3 weeks, then brought them back to about 40 metres from the wall! :roll:
 
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