What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[welshnik]

 

Help!!

 

As some of you know, we now have a and and are soooo dull that they don't want to go up the ladder and now has laid on the grass under the cube!!

 

Tips/advice please!! They don't know what to do!!!! Despite broccoli, grapes, lights in the cube........!!!!!!!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Can you make a temporary ramp/ladder affair till they get the hang of it? (I don't think it's just your chickens, I gather quite a few have difficulty with the cube ladder .)

[jimnpaula]

We had to start with a ramp with rungs too, mine are ex bats and weren't very fit when we got them and they used to struggle just with this let alone the ladder. We just used old pallet wood and as they got fitter we periodically tried them without the ramp to see how they did. One day we sawed about 6 inches off to make it steeper with the idea that it could be attached to the ladder but just took it out a couple weeks later and never replaced it.

 

Mostly the ladies lay in the nestbox, if an egg is under the cube we can often reach it by putting the wheels down and reaching under the slightly lifted edge of the run.

 

P

[Patricia W]

Our new bantams have had problems with the ladder. We've now put the foam that you use to insulate pipes round each rung, with a little " mat" of it in the doorway ( the door still closes fine).

 

Then we have a box as the stepping stone for the first rung. We put some mealworms on each step and the bravest went up. Once we had two of them going up and down the others got the idea- although 2 of them still throw themselves off the top step each morning!

 

Tricia