From the comments, both in private emails and on the last post, it was clear to me that more needs to be said about roosting behavior for young chickens. Why won’t your pullets go into the coop at night, get up on the roosts to sleep like they’re supposed to?

Chickens naturally want to roost (unless they’re Silkies or heavy meat hybrids). Encourage this when they are very young. Here my 3 week old chicks are getting up on their “training roosts” and learning to balance and nap off of the ground.

Give the chicks a chance to explore the coop without old hens there to hassle them.

Once the chicks venture outside, you should provide roosts for them in their pen.

Although, they’ll also find other things to get up onto.

Given the opportunity, your pullets will find places to roost, whether designed for them, or not.

By the time they are feathered out and no longer need a heat lamp, they’ll want to roost at bedtime, too. If not, read yesterday’s post. Add to that list mites – these blood-sucking minuscule parasites live in the woodwork during the day, but come out at night. When the infestation is bad you’ll see them crawling on the roosts and on your birds. They can make your chickens’ lives miserable. I haven’t experienced it here, so I don’t have a FAQ for you, but I can tell you that you’ll have to thoroughly disinfect the coop, use chemicals on your birds, paint to seal the wood, and possibly redesign the coop to rid it of these pests.

But, I think that for most of you, if your pullets are showing normal roosting behavior outside of the coop, and yet you’re still not seeing them roost at night, you either have badly designed housing, or your older hens are intimidating the young ones, or there’s a combination of the two.

As mentioned yesterday, the coop should be inviting. It should have cool, fresh air, windows for light, and enough space to generously accommodate your flock. Space is often the key. Old hens do not want the youngsters on their turf. They don’t want to sleep next to them. They will not play “nice.” Expect that and design for it. Have roosts at different levels. Have more than 6 inches of bar space per bird. Have enough floor space so that the pullets can avoid the domineering hens by scooting around them. If a hen can block all access to the coop, or pin a pullet in a corner, then the coop is too small for your flock. If you have one truly mean hen (think Edwina when she was young) then remove her for a few days to give the youngsters time to become confident in their new surroundings.

If you don’t have old hens scaring the pullets, and they still aren’t roosting, you might be rushing things. They don’t start roosting until they no longer need the heat lamp. They don’t all start roosting at night until about six weeks of age. By ten weeks they should be up on the poles. The few laggard can lifted up and set next to the rest of the flock, and they’ll catch on quickly to the routine.

Chickens might seem dim-witted, but they do what they do for their own good reasons. It’s your job to figure out what those reasons are. It’s not complicated, but you do have to see the world from a chicken’s perspective.

The other day, right at dusk, it was pouring rain. It was getting dark and the pullets were still outside. My barn boots have big cracks in them, but I shoved my feet in them anyway. I put on my raincoat. I went into the run and, slipping and sliding in slick muck, I tried to catch the girls and put them inside. I wasn’t successful. All I succeeded in doing was giving them a pre-bedtime bit of exercise. At least I didn’t fall. I gave up, went inside, and changed my now muddy socks, all the while muttering, “fine, get soaked and die.”

Of course, they didn’t get wet to the bone. Or die. Of course, when it was really bedtime, they went right into the coop on their own. I should have known better. I do know better. Chickens will put themselves to bed. You don’t have to do anything.

They don’t all have the same schedule. The Old Girls make their way onto the roost well before the young hens even consider going inside.

Eventually, as dusk falls, the pullets slow down. It might even look like they’re going to spend the night outside.

They won’t. Before it is too dark to see their way, but not a moment before, they’ll go find their places on the roost. (I had to turn on the light to take this photo.)

If your hens aren’t going inside to sleep, my guess is, that like me on that rainy night, you set the bedtime too early. Have a bit of patience and they’ll toddle off to sleep, inside, on their own.

If they are sleeping all night outside, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is it too dark in the coop for them to see the roosts? Chickens do not have night vision. They can’t see in the dark. If your coop doesn’t have windows, by the time they think about going inside, they can’t find their way. Some coops have ramps underneath the raised floors through which to enter the coop. Hens will get stuck there, in the dark, unable to see where to go.
2. Is the coop too hot? In extremely hot climates, it might have cooled off outside, but it hasn’t yet in the coop. A hen will not willingly walk into a stifling hot box.
3. Is there enough roost space so that the hens can choose their sleeping partners and jockey for roosting position?
4. Can your older hens get up to the roost? Buffy needs a low roost, but others want to be up high.
5. Is there good ventilation? Does the air smell fresh? Decomposing manure gives off ammonia. No one wants to sleep over the fumes.
6. If there’s a sudden change in your flock’s behavior and they refuse to go into the coop, perhaps there is a predator lurking.
7. Have your young chickens learned how to roost? Even if you didn’t teach them as chicks, they’ll naturally want to be up on a roost at night. Once in awhile, a young bird hasn’t figured that out. Three of my pullets stayed on the ground while the others found their places on the rungs. I gently picked them up and set them on a low roost. I did this for two days and by the third they were going up on their own.
8. If your hens are going inside, but sleeping in nesting boxes, read this.
9. Do you have free-ranging hens that prefer to sleep in trees? They will be taken by predators. They’ll need to be retrained.

For more about roosting, see the next post.

Rabbits do not have a bedtime. Unlike the hens, they see just fine in the dark, and like an evening romp.

But, Phoebe needs to be kept safe from predators, too I’ve been picking her up and carrying her to her hutch, where, like her predecessor, she gets a reward of one banana chip for being closed in for the night. Phoebe is beginning to catch onto the routine.

The nest in the window box

is the site of a successful hatch. Yesterday there were two baby robins. When they first break out of the eggs, they are limp and naked.

This morning a third chick hatched. Perhaps the fourth will emerge later today or tomorrow.

What a contrast to chicken chicks that take a few hours to dry off, and then are up and on their feet and able to eat and drink on their own by day two. Parents not needed. But these robin babies need two parents to survive. The father has been bringing insects to the setting mamma to eat.

Soon, both parents will be bringing food for their ravenous chicks. Childhood for these babies, though, is condensed into a few short weeks. For some species, the parental bonds never end. Yesterday at the nursing home I met a 101 year-old woman and her granddaughter.

Happy Father’s Day.

It’s very difficult, as the keeper of a small and varied backyard flock, to make an accurate diagnosis about most health issues. Hen standing like a penguin? It could be cancer. Or she could be constipated. Rattly breath? Respiratory disease (and there are many) or ascites, or peritonitis. Or she swallowed a bit of straw wrong and will be fine by evening. If you’re looking for answers and go to an on-line poultry forum you’ll get a lot of misinformation, rehashing of Damerow’s books, and maybe some good tips, if you can sort the useful from the bad. There are plenty of blogs out there long on advice, but short on actual experience with the diseases they’re talking about.

When I’m faced with an issue with my girls that I need to know more about, I turn to Veterinary manuals, scientific journals, poultry industry research and fact sheets put on-line by Extension Departments (United States and Canadian agriculture colleges have these outreach offices to help farmers). I’ve gleaned much enlightening information from these sources, but it is not always applicable for my situation because all of the research is done on young, commercial flocks, and the protocols and advice given are for farmers, not a suburban chicken keeper who dotes on her old hens. As one extension fact sheet stated, layers are usually kept for 52 weeks. My Gems are 110 weeks old. Twinkydink is 416 weeks old. To poultry scientists, these birds don’t exist.

When researching what might be going on that the Gems are laying eggs with ridges, crackles, and rough surfaces, I came across photos of eggs that exactly matched what I’m finding in the nesting boxes. This photo from Cornell (scroll to photo # 5 of 8) matches Florence’s egg. These photos match the other eggs that I’ve been blogging about. The culprit appears to be infectious bronchitis (iB). On a production farm, with pullets of one breed, crowded by the tens of thousands inside buildings, this can be devastating. Birds will exhibit severe respiratory symptoms. Egg production will drop to near to nothing for up to four weeks. Eggs that are laid will be large and thin-shelled. iB is caused by a virus. There is no treatment other than time. Eventually the symptoms will pass, normal eggs will be laid, and the farmer will have to add up the financial losses. At 52 weeks all of those layers will be slaughtered, the housing disinfected, and the farmer will hope not to see this in the next group.

My Gems might have iB, but they never showed respiratory symptoms, egg production has dropped by only 10 % and less than half of the flock are laying odd eggs. Is this because older chickens some have immunity? Pullets on production farms are under a huge amount of stress. Perhaps that’s why entire flocks on factory farms succumb so severely. I have no way of knowing.

Or, perhaps my hens are carriers of another virus, one that causes Egg Drop Syndrome. Unlike iB, the affected flocks don’t show respiratory symptoms. They do lay eggs with shells the texture of sandpaper. Only one of my hens does that. Wild birds carry this virus, so perhaps that’s how it got a foothold here. Again, there’s no cure other than time. Since these viruses only affect birds (iB afflicts only chickens) the eggs are safe to eat.

If I were a commercial farmer, I’d follow the recommendations and slaughter all of the birds, disinfect, and begin anew. I’d also pay for lab tests to accurately identify the pathogen. But, I am not a farmer. I’m not even trying to have a sustainable homestead. As someone who keeps old chickens, I already accept the fact of life that egg production peaks at the first year, and goes down from there. I’m fine with a few less eggs because of this virus. I am not going to keep my chickens indoors away from all wild birds and possibly infected soil. I like to think that the healthy, less stressful housing, with fresh air and sunshine that I have here offsets the downside of possible exposure to pathogens. Since viruses lurk in damp and dust, I am obsessive about keeping my coop clean and dry.

I am concerned about the thin-shelled eggs caused by the virus. Thin eggs are already a problem with my older hens, simply because as chickens age they are less able to metabolize calcium for egg production. Fragile shells can lead to laying issues, including breakage and infection in the hen, impaction, and the bad habit of egg eating. I will have to be especially vigilant about collecting eggs frequently, watching for laying discomfort, and feeding a balanced diet to promote the sturdiest eggs possible.

I have a feeling that these viruses are prevalent in home flocks, as one of the most emailed questions that I get is about odd eggs. I think that most of us with older flocks live with some level of infection. The viruses do not survive long in fresh air, but still, I think about biosecurity. I am already careful not to wear barn shoes and jackets when visiting friends with flocks, and I ask them to do the same when coming here.

So, once again, I have to fall back on common sense and experience. I think that I’ve struck the right balance here, but I’m always learning. I’ll keep you updated.