[lou-b-lou]

I bought my 2 new chickens home yesterday afternoon and put them in their new coop.  I left them overnight with food/drink inside the coop as all the books tell you to do.  Went and opened the pop hole at 6.30 this morning...it is now 10am and they haven't come out - not even poked their heads around the door.  Is this normal?? Should I just leave them or try to coax them out?  I took the water and food out of the coop and put outside in their run but that didn't work so I put it back inside.  Not sure what to do now... Please help.

[compostqueen]

I would not put food and water in the coop with them overnight. Take the food indoors etc where it can be safely stored and given back to them in the morning. They don't need to drink or eat once they've gone to bed.  You can take their food and fresh water back to them each morning

Check on the hens to make sure all is well and they all look ok.  If you put the food and water out in the run they will want to go out and eat and drink.  I am sure they will venture out of their own accord    It's all very new to them so they will be cautious 

[Casey76]

They will come out eventually - they just need a bit of confidence first

[lou-b-lou]

Yay! Happy chickens!
They came out eventually at about 3pm on Sunday.  Today I opened the run door so that they could freerange in the garden and again it took ages for them to venture out - finally built up courage at about 4pm.  But now very happily pecking around the garden.

[debih]

Ours did this.

We have had them for just over 2 weeks and for the first week they only seemed to come out of the house when I was in the run with them.  I was having the clean the house out every day as they were not really coming out.

Then after about a week they started to come out on their own in an evening and now, almost 3 weeks on, they seem to be out most of the day.