Sleeping in the nest box!?!

Sue

Sue

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My hens are sleeping in the nest boxes! It's their first night here and when I checked on them 4 were in one nest box and 2 in the other! No one on the perches (6 hens). Two were on top of the other two in one box and the other two obviously thought better of getting on top! What do I do?
 
I'd leave them carry on for a couple of nights- you might find that they favour the perches after a few days once they've settled in :)
They may not have been somewhere with perches before so after a few days if they are still sleeping in the nest boxes gently place them onto the perch and hopefully they'll get the idea.
Good luck with your new birds! :D
 
Hello, are the perches higher than the nest boxes? They will always pick the higher of the two- you need to put them on the perch- otherwise they will get into the nest box sleeping habit and mess them up every night. you could try and block off the nest boxes with cardboard etc late afternoon so they use the perches - once sleeping on the perches they will be fine.
regards, David :)
 
We block off our nest-boxes late afternoon as we have a couple of hens who always seem to favour the nest boxes over perches (despite the perches being higher). These 2 hens much prefer sleeping on the floor/in a nest box no matter what we do - think the habit got so ingrained as 1 of the hens we got with them could never perch (her feet were in a terrible state when we got them & once healed were so badly scarred she couldn't perch comfortably) & these particular 3 used to stick together no matter what...
 
My 4 silkies have never ever used their perches despite being very low set :-)07 preferring to heap together in the nest box, quite sweet really

I have since disovered this is particular to their breed, they are generally non perching birds. I gave up trying to encourage them in the end & removed the perches as they were just getting in the way :D
 
picking out poo is a regular job for me as out of 19 birds at least one will do it each nite x
 
Of the poultry that I have some sleep in the nest boxes, some on the perches, some on the hen house floors (have around 50 henhouses). Each bird is different, aslong as they are happy and healthy I would not worry.
I find different breeds have different sleeping arrangements!
 
Nobodys translated the rule book into chicken, they don't know that we want them to use nest boxes for laying in and perches for sleeping on. The day its translated I'll buy one for my ex-bats who also sleep in the nest boxes.
 
Ditto what VP & Anns chooks have said, mine do what they want to :lol:
 
we had a bantam that decided to move in with the big chickins when she first moved in she slept in the nest boxes but a couple of months later she started sleeping on the perches with the rest of the chickins
 
I have a Brahma hen who by what contortions I can't imagine lays in the two inch wide feed trough, attached to the wall 1 foot off the floor!! :-)07 I've never seen her do it but found many an egg there.
 
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