# Roost Poles?



## jrsterling (Jul 3, 2013)

So I am on night four with my new coop and three hens. I put them up top in the coop the first night and they go up every night since. However every night I have to go put them on the roost poles. They will not get up there on their own. I have two 1.5 inch poles a foot off the coop floor. Is it a big deal that they sleep on the poles? If not I am going to take them out.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

There's your problem. One and a half inch poles are too small for a standard breed chicken to roost upon. Also, do they have room to fly up there and turn around, get down, shuffle back and forth and do it all over again? Because that's how they like to do it. 

Roosts should be at least as thick as a man's wrist for roosting comfort for a standard breed chicken. 

Roosts are just a part of a chicken's natural life...they make them feel safer, let them rest better and helps establish the pecking/social order. If they roost on the ground and against your wire, a **** can grab right through that wire in the night and pull them through far enough to kill them~particularly the kind of wire you have on your coop.


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