Chickens suddenly won’t go in coop at night?

[Taylorchickens]

Hello! So I’m wondering if anyone has ideas on this.

Tonight I went out to close the coop up and three of my four laying hens (7mon) were roosting on my deck. The fourth was in the coop as usual but by itself. They all have consistently always put themselves to sleep at night. Only one time two weeks ago I accidentally shut the door and they couldn’t get in so they roosted on my deck until I went to close them up and realized. But every single night since they were babies they have put themselves to sleep in the coop.
So what could be the cause of this? Three of the chickens just suddenly not going into the coop at night. It’s only been one night but it was just odd to me. I checked inside the coop and saw nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary and no mites on the roosting bars. Pictured is my coop setup (it’s a few months old when the chickens were babies). They seem to be laying as normal this morning in their nesting boxes. Any help or thoughts would be great!

Thanks!

 

[Taylorchickens]

Hello! So I’m wondering if anyone has ideas on this.

Tonight I went out to close the coop up and three of my four chickens were roosting on my deck. The fourth was in the coop as usual by itself. They all have consistently always put themselves to sleep at night. Only one time two weeks ago I accidentally shut the door and they couldn’t get in so they roosted on my deck until I went to close them up and realized. But every single night since they were babies they have put themselves to sleep in the coop.
So what could be the cause of this? Three of the chickens just suddenly not going into the coop at night. It’s only been one night but it was just odd to me. I checked inside the coop and saw nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary and no mites on the roosting bars. Pictured is my coop setup (it’s a few months old when the chickens were babies). They seem to be laying as normal this morning in their nesting boxes. Any help or thoughts would be great!

Thanks!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

How much roosting space is in the coop?
Could be they are getting older and feel a little cramped?

 

[Taylorchickens]

I have been catching them sleeping in the nesting boxes so you could be right. These are the best pictures I have of the inside I believe. I’m not sure how I could add more roosting space because it’s not a huge space. This coop said it held 8-10 chickens but I was veryyy cautious about that so only got 4. Well here we are and that may even be too small maybe I can start a new thread asking for ideas on how to create more roosting space.

 

[LaFleche]

Maybe raise the roosting bars to 40 -59 cm from the floor level, as they seem too low for comfort.

Chicken instinctively want to roost as high as possible at night.

And while you are at it, check for poultry mites as well.

 

[TooCheep]

Pre-fab coops are notorious for overstating capacity. They are based more on factory farming spacing (cramped) than what most backyard chicken owners (more humane) recommend.

For reference (full-sized chickens)- roost: 1 ft/bird, coop: 4 sqft/bird, run: 10 sqft/bird.

 

[lagrange chicks]

I had that one time when I changed the pine shavings, they never had that done before and caused them to be chicken.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

I think your roosting bars are too low. They should be higher than the nesting boxes. Chickens prefer to be as high as possible, as @LaFleche suggested.

 

[Alderen]

Trust me when I say that this specific coop definitely overstates capacity. We got 6 girls based on the fact that the coop said it could accommodate 8-10 (we purchased the exact coop). It would have to be 8-10 of the smaller breeds of chickens. Our six girls outgrew it FAST. The overcrowding caused a whole other set of problems however that's a different story. The "roosting bars" in that coop are right on the floor and our girls never really used them. For a while, they actually preferred to roost on the bar outside. Since we had the coop right next to the house and not many predators I felt comfortable letting them do this. When we moved them into their new coop, the first night we actually had to place 1 of the girls on the roosting bars to teach the others. Now every night our girls go into the coop and hop right up on their higher roosting bars.

 

[aldarita]

I had that one time when I changed the pine shavings, they never had that done before and caused them to be chicken.

Chickens don't like changes, they're so set in their routines