When I realised that Diamond was too big and heavy to jump up to the bedtime perches I ordered a pair of free standing perches from Amazon. They only came as a pair and were described as heavy so they wouldn’t tip and suitable for any chicken.
I have to say they were inexpensive so I probably shouldn’t have expected too much from them. They were not what I would call heavy and they were much narrower than I expected. However they were perfect for the broody crate.
At the time I was breaking Sugar from her last broody spell. She hopped on to this perch and stayed on it overnight. It stayed upright when she jumped down. For a serama I would say it was perfect but not for any girl bigger than a serama.
As usual a few nights in the broody crate did the trick and Sugar started laying again four days ago and has laid two eggs so far. This means we now have three girls laying, Snowflake, Dot and Sugar. Gold hasn’t resumed laying as she is having a partial moult and is dropping feathers everywhere.
The first night I put Diamond on the perch it had tipped over by morning when she jumped off. Luckily we had some heavy, chunky bits of wood in the shed so my husband cut a piece to size and attached the perch to this. This made the perch a bit higher and very stable.
The perch no longer tipped over but I still felt that it wasn’t wide enough for Diamonds feet. My husband then added a piece from the shed that we had left over from making perches. It was now the right size for Diamond.
The flash on my camera no longer works so this photo isn’t very good but it does give the gist of Diamond on her perch.
It was worth buying the perches as with a few adaptations we have solved the problem for Diamond and the perch in the broody crate is better than what we did before which was to jam a perch between the bars.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
It did, in its original form, look a tad on the light side but Richard has adapted it brilliantly.
It was definitely too light but as Richard has adapted it, it has worked out very inexpensive. It gave us a start point.
I love how you meet all the requirements your girls need. Lucky girls.
I don’t think she could get up to the main perches without my help but it also worried me that she would jump down with a thump as she is a heavy girl. On this perch she can just step down.