sleeping arrangments

Hi everyone,

I am totally new to keeping chickens so any tips are welcome, got my 3 girls 5 days ago and believe they are about 16 weeks old. they have a pen with 2 nesting boxes and a small run attached but have the run of my garden during the day, I have no trouble putting them to bed at night they just make their own way into the coup at night, always around 9-9.30pm, there are 2 perches but they all ignore these and bed down in the nesting boxes, apart from the inconvenience to me having to clean the nesting boxes every day is this going to cause any problems with laying, have had 1 egg so far but none since.
I bought them as pets for my wife and I and am chuffed to bits with them and cant believe how individual they are, each one has its own personality already and each one behaves differently around me to how they behave around my wife, they are called Mildred, Agnes and Beryl, wifes choice not mine.   

Welcome to the Forum, Mike, and to the wonderful world of chicken keeping.

Ditto everything Joyful said.   

Good luck,
cathangirl

Hi Mikeyd

I am no expert as I have only had my 3 girls for 3 months or so.  Mine are ex-batts and have always used the nest box to sleep in.  I have never encouraged them to go on the perch.  With regards to cleaning out the poo some kind fellow on this site suggested that after they have laid (which is lunch time for my 3) I go in and collect the eggs and place a couple of sheets of newspaper in their nest box.  Then in the morning all I have to do is gather up the newspaper complete with poo!  My chucks don't seem to have a problem sleeping on the newspaper either.

Hope this helps

I have placed a heavy ceramic flower pot upside down in my (hens) nesting box to stop them from sitting there. I will remove it when they are close to laying age (soon now!)

The roof on the hen house is sloped so they can't perch on top of the pot base.

thanks for all your suggestion, lifting them out and placing them on the perch sounds good so does putting something in the nest box to stop them sleeping in there, if I try the latter will they then be forced to roost on the perches do you think.    

hello!  We had the same with our chooks.  We tried persisting with shooing them out of the nesting box but they just kept on creeping back - (comfy straw appeals to me more then perching on a wooden stick too!) so in the end when they have  all laid, we put a piece of cardboard at the entrance of the nesting box  so there is no confusion at night time now!  When I let them out in the morning I remove the card again so they can go in to lay at their leisure!

tried both methods now but all three just end up huddled together in the corner, I get 1 on a perch then when I put the second on the first just hops off, put some big pots in the nest box and even though there was only about 2" at the side and the same between the top and the nest box roof they still managed to poo in there, me thinks they have won. I feel guilty disturbing them anyway.
 thanks for the tips all, think I might be spending some time on this forum in the coming months have got loads of questions.   :blink:

I have noticed that as mine have got older and further into laying they are using the perch in their run much more and at least two out of three are perching at night ( tell by the poo pattern.) Maybe it's just a growing up thing? I don't mind them sleeping in the nest boxes at all and like so many of you they have their order going in at bed-time and coming out in the morning. They're real characters! Never thought I'd be so hooked on birds......