[gracie]

They are now 26 weeks, not in lay yet, though wattles now showing signs of coming. They have always slept on their roost bar in the coop and recently have stopped jumping up. They are approx 12 inches high, lower than the chairs they jump onto in the garden. I have been lifting them up for the last week as they always seem to sit under the other two hybrids and i am worried they will poo on them.
Does anyone have any experiences of Orpingtons sleeping or not on roost bars. I have had them for 20 weeks and after a couple of days of having them they have always got themselves on the bar before. do they need a lower bar, trouble is they would then have to hop over it to get to the nest boxes. Advice appreciated.

[JaK]

My Orpingtons (younger than yours) have never learnt the art of roosting as I still have to put them up each night. A couple of breeders I have spoken to have said that a lot of orpingtons don't roost because their size and shape makes it uncomfortable. I'm still trying to get mine to roost though....

[Casey76]

You may find they don't have enough room to manouever to roost in the coop.

12ins is a very high roost for giant breeds such ar orpingtons (brahmas, even Faverolles etc), if you reduced the size of the roost to 4ins you will probably find they roost again

[Helenaj]

I placed a ramp in my coop for my Orpington cockerel as he just couldn't get up onto the roost - as Casey76 says there wasn't enough room. Once I'd installed the ramp and put some extra support under the bar to hold his weight he was perfectly happy snuggling up to his girls.

[Colernehens]

Our Coop had very low roost bars, that were removable to make it easy to clean out the coop.

Our Orpingtons soon cotton on to the fact that the bars can be moved, and they move them in order to sleep on the coop floor. They have been doing this for over a year now, no matter how many times we replace the perches, they remove them 

However at the moment our 26 week old chicks are still roosting as they should so we live in hope. 

[gracie]

Thanks I will look into putting a lower bar in. They seem happy to roost once they are put on there as they stay all night. Honey even has an extra 30 minute lay in every morning compared to the others. I guess I wouldnt mind them staying on the floor as we have  a slatted floor that doesnt get very messy, but they seem to stand under the others and i hate to think the mess their fluffy feathers could potentially end up

[ANHBUC]

You might need to check for redmite as this could be another reason for them not wanting to roost.  Hopefully it not the reason but best to check just in case with the recent hot weather we had you never know. 

[bantam novice]

Hear hear!  I just had to get rid of an attack of the redmite in my little ark 

[Rita]

my chickens like to lie on the floor, sometimes they roost but not always, i leave them to sort themselves out and do what they want.

[gracie]

I regularly run my hands all over the bars so i know its not that. i think its probably just too much effort

[Helenaj]

I regularly run my hands all over the bars so i know its not that. i think its probably just too much effort

Are the bars wide enough? Do you have an option to install a wider bar. Being bigger, they do need a little extra footroom and it could be that now they've grown so much the standard width bar is simply not wide enough for them to feel comfortable roosting.

[gracie]

Yes luckily they have some nice solid bars that hubby just rounded slightly for them, they are pretty solid 2 x 2.  Tomorrow we will have a move around with the bars. I have posted an old photo from before the orps came. We got them to replace the boys that had to go back to my friend. If you look on the right hand side of the photo you can just see where the  nest boxes used to be blocked off. My intention is to drop the front bar to only a few inches as they will have to hop over it to get in the front nest box. If they want to use it that is as the original 2 girls like to use the same one.

ve some

[gracie]

Oh well, that's sorted, lowered the front roost and there is currently one orp on the low roost and the other is on the high roost with the others, after using the smaller one as a stepping stone. They now have one happy mummy.

[ANHBUC]

Great result.