Last night I went out in the evening to see how the girls were getting on with their new, temporary, trellis, bedtime perch. They weren’t happy!
It soon became obvious there was a problem. Because there was only one perch instead of the usual two, the first girls up filled the nearest space and the last girls couldn’t get on.
Only three girls made it to the trellis perch
Peaches, Barley and Honey went to the next highest point, my shoe box.
There was confusion from these three
I tried to help by setting up a bridge
Emerald still couldn’t fit on the perch
I decided this was no good and they needed a second perch. I asked my husband to help even though it was the end of a long, tiring, day. I was afraid the girls would risk taking a leap if they couldn’t easily get to the perch. We managed to find another piece of wood to put up.
Another perch makes everything better
Suddenly everyone was happy on the new perch. The trellis is obviously not popular and this time Peaches and Barley have managed their usual position, side by side. Normality resumes.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Silly Chickens! It’s good to see Peaches and Barley back together again. 😉
Our hens have had a fight over the bottom right corner of the coop. Peach is broody with eggs, so she’s automatically claimed that spot. Speckles and her 4 chicks however, want to share. It went on for 2 nights where if a chick got too close, Peach would peck it and the chick would dash back under mom. Now, they have seemed to work it out, but our chicks now want to sleep on the perch! My sister found one up on the highest perch with the rooster one morning! 🙂
It’s amazing how early on chicks like to roost up high. Peaches and Barley were only six weeks old when I first had them and they would always find the highest point in their part of the run to roost, sometimes in the plant pots. I soon had to install a high perch for them and lift them down at bedtime.
I think it’s probably that the trellis was too thin for the girls to comfortably perch on.
I think you are right. At first I thought the change in shape may be putting them off but I think you have hit the nail on the head. Tonight they all lined up just the same as the last photo and I felt the trellis could just go because they just don’t like it and the one perch they are using is actually just right for them. Tonight they look identical to last night.
This is exactly what I thought too. Chickens normally don’t like perching on small bits of wood with square corners.
I guess if you think about carrying something heavy that has a handle that is that shape you can see why it would be uncomfortable for their feet.
Yes, I think you are right. We only used the trellis because it was all we could find but when we make them a ladder of perches for the new shed we will use the existing round perches from their old coop.
The problem arose because the guys threw out the perches (just random bits of wood to them) and had taken them away with the rubbish. The second bit of wood we have now used is from the door frame of the garden shed which we had to take off to get the freezer in and had kept away from the guys. We will need to keep it to put back on the shed later.