[hillfooter]

Oh and if you are further wondering what the thing sticking up on the lhs of the door is it's Polly the parrots perch.  She tells me if the house is open or closed.  So I can tell from a distance when the house is fronted by the porch run.

Here she is.  When she flies the door is open and when she perches on the roof it's closed
HF

[joyfull]

They are from the Forsham ark company and Hillfooters is from the Lenham range. They are expensive but having seen his 10 year old coop and in this time all he has had to do to this is replace a couple of boards and treat with preservative I too was most impressed.

http://www.forshamcottagearks.com/

[evie2]

Ooo wish I hadn't looked on that site Joyful:(

[alancane]

Just been out to my ladies and had a chat cos again they are sleeping on the floor. I put them on the perch and they just get off it. People say that you can just pick them up and put them on the perch and that's it... but mine seem quite awake and let me put them on but they get straight off.

Will try for one more week and then concede defeat I think. Googling it, it seems to be a common theme with mixed responses - some say must go on, some say let them sleep on floor of coop and keep it clean, which I very much do. So many right and wrong ways I guess and everyones experience is going to be different.

Unless you have any other ideas? I would love that coop, but my budget won't go that far!

[joyfull]

persevere with it Alan, chickens poop so much at night that it doesn't matter if you poop pick in the morning the bacteria would have gotten into the eye over night. My sablepoots (the ones with the eye infections) also refused to roost (put on - hop or fall off, put on etc) so in the end I decided to keep them in a separate coop and on the floor I covered it with floor height perches (I use plastic ones that are made for the Eglus) this way they have no option but to perch now. All their poop drops through and they stay clean and dry 

[evie2]

One of mine ended up with an eye infection from not roosting - some muck ended up in her eye  . So really please do try to get them all roosting if you can.

Yes I agree with Joy here chx huddling on a soiled floor isn't a sanitary arrangement and they risk brest blister as well as other problems such as Joy suggests as well as breathing more dust.

Birds will perch naturally but the house design has to be right and offer them a grill of roosting bars with no under perch access and minimum floor space.  Nestboxes can be shuttered and some houses have this included as standard.  After training them for a few weeks they learn to roost on the roosting bars.  Single pole roosts are for caged birds only chx are social flock animals and like to huddle together on their roosts.  Single or double poles don't allow them to do this so they huddle on the floor or in the nestboxes instead.  If your house is like this consider modifying the interior.
HF

Thanks for the tip HF about the nest boxes and perches, I'll try that out tonight