[northfifeduckling]

The rescued girls have decided to shun the perches and sleep in the nesting boxes. As they are cold without many feathers I'll leave them for a bit but how will I stop them later on as cleaning out nesting boxes before breakfast every days is not my ideal morning. They obviously never had perches where they came from. I've already curtained the nest boxes off for privacy when laying (only 1 atm) as there was at least one egg eater amongst them at the start.

[Jukes Mum]

Usually moving them onto a perch after dark for a few nights on the trot works. Depending on the size of the nest box, a football works well to keep them out, but you need to remove it early in the morning before they want to lay.

[PhilW]

I assume these are ex-battery hens, if so they have probably never seen a perch let alone use one. In fact I remove the perches for a couple of weeks until they settle down. I put straw and wood shavings on the floor of the coop, yes they will sleep in the boxes but will soon start to lay in them, again they are only used to laying any place they want. You will also find they need their claws trimming as they will not have been able to scratch around. It may take a couple of weeks for them to get used to their new enviroment, mine have to get used to going up a small ladder into the coop, and the current ones I have have taken about a week to cotton on, although I still have to put one in at night. Hope this helps just takes time.

[macgro7]

Lock the boxes in the late afternoon so they can't sleep in them but open them again just before you go to sleep so the can use them first thing in the morning