<dh@.> wrote in message news:muqp13h53cou02o7tid71bumtovcotqr2l@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:55:04 GMT, "0tterbot" <spl@t.com> wrote:
>
>>serious question!
>>
>>no matter how quiet i try to be when closing them up for the night, the
>>little blighters are all awake.
>>
>>i am starting to wonder if they're like cows & hardly ever actually sleep,
>>just rest.
>
> They do sleep, often with their head tucked under a wing.
how cute :-)
>>my three youngest chickens still don't roost, either. i made them a spiffy
>>new house with two lovely roosts, & all they thought about that was to be
>>sure not to bump their heads. they all sleep in the nesting box. i don't
>>know why i bother. apparently they'd have been perfectly happy if i'd just
>>made them a nesting box with a door on it ;-)
>>kylie
>
> How old are they?
hm, about 6-7 months now, i think.
Young chicks are taught to roost by their
> mothers as soon as they are big enough to do so.
they came from a poultry farm - it's not clear to me if the babies are kept
with mothers or all brought up artificially. they do all other normal
chicken things except roost, but they really are a little eccentric, it
seems to me. one has a game of jumping on my feet (literally) while i'm
trying to walk around.
You should
> try putting them on the roost when it is dark, without turning a
> light on or they will just jump back down.
3 weeks out of 4, the darkness at my place is absolute and total. this can
never work.
Some of them will
> jump down or fall off anyway, but if you do it regularly some of
> them should get the idea since there's an instinct for it to begin
> with, and eventually they might all start doing it voluntarily if
> they're not too old to learn already. It probably also has something
> to do with the type of chicken you're dealing with...
i'll see how i go with persuading them (unless or until one or the other of
us gets tired of it) but really it was a throwaway comment. perhaps the
construction & layout of both houses they've been in is to blame.
kylie
