4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[sugarspice]

on saturday morning at 4.19 my 4 chickens went into full crowing, man what a racket. they are roosting outside their house on branches. i thought they only spoke after they had laid but oh no. do other omleteers suffer from this. i had to put them back in the house. luckily no neighbours complained this time

[tidygirlsuk]

Maybe you could put them in their coop at night and you can let them out at a reasonable hour.

Edited June 30, 2009 by Guest

[sugarspice]

they used to go in on there own. since the spring they have kipped outside

[Mutrix Farmers]

I think it's the weather, several other poeple have noticed that their chooks are noisier than usual. Mine certainly are!! Given that the wild birds start singing at 3.30 I'm not surprised that they are crowing so early if they sleep outside.

[Patricia W]

Lock them in the house overnight and cover it and the run with a black (cover or as dark as you can make it). And, the night before, make sure they go to bed with a full crop. That's when I feed them mixed corn as a treat.

 

I've worked this out by trial and error - we had to as we have a cockerel. Now he wakes up when we let them out again about 7.30

[stoice]

I've noticed my girls are a lot noisier this week. I put it down to paving over their soil based run - that they were protesting. Of course from what Mutrix says, it may be the weather too. Having the windows open I noticed it a lot more - even with our bedroom at the front - so i dread to think how much the neighbours hear. I've now started to close the door at night and let them out when I get up (6am). I can still hear them protesting inside their house at 6am but at least it's muffled so it shouldn't upset the neighbours.

[Hen Watch]

I had this exactly 2 years ago.

 

I'd had the chooks a few months, got used to leaving the door open, and three early morning wake up calls (which were just dreadful) put paid to that.

 

So now their eglu door is shut at night (in fact I need to pad out now and do it) and then opened up at 7-7.30am. No noises at night or early morning at all now. And I feel 7.30am is reasonable if they do make noise as folk are up and getting reading for work etc.

[sugarspice]

tried the tarp over the eglu last night and we didnt hear a whisper from the madams.