I didn’t build my chickens roost free standing. But instead I made mine on hinges so the roost will fold up and lock against my ceiling of my coop and leave the coop floor completely opened for cleaning. No having to crawl behind the roost or have to move it somewhere else when you’re having to clean the coop! Also built mine all out of 2x4’s cause I read somewhere the larger boards were better for the chickens feet. Whether it is or not, I have no idea? But that’s what I did anyway! With wood costs increasing using less wood would help the pocket book! Nice boost either way! You actually had the right idea if you ever wanted to use hinges on your roost as I have. Just need a couple flat pieces of plywood on both side of the roost and the boards you put on the roost wall to have the space to put your hinges on. Then you could fold up your roost completely out of your way by having a rope or some kind of a latch to hold the roost up over your head. Another thing I learned is you want least 12 “ away from the wall for your closest roost to keep the chicken from crapping down the sides of the wall. Learned that the hard way too! LOL But wasn’t hard to fix!
great idea im definitely gonna incorporate hinges into the design, never would have thought of that. and also i think if you have long and cold winters the wider 2x4 allows their feet to be covered better by their bodies at night, if your in a warmer ares on end is better
They grab onto the thinner boards with their feet and sit on them in the winter to keep warm. And snuggle with a neighbor chicken. Most of them roost on these but we also have some flat surfaces for chickens that like to be different.
Great thinking ghostridergale…been considering those points myself. Still in the drawing board figuring out how I’m going to incorporate all that into my roost bars.
Thank you for this video. My dad and I made two of these roosts for our coop and I'm really happy with how they turned out. Your instructions were easy to follow and the roosts came together easily.
Hi there Happy Wife! Thank you for the informative and great video! I am getting ready to relocate my chicken girls from an old handmade coop into a small metal shed and I needed to know how and what type of lumber to use. You've answered my question and I'm way beyond thankful for your detailed video! Thanks again and God bless!
That’s pretty helpful. Our coop is tall but kind of narrow. We’re new to chickens and I’ve been all over the Internet looking at various things. Thank you! I believe this is pretty much what we’ll do for ours (we’re running dual purpose birds).
When I first watched this and you said 60 degrees I thought you meant the distance from the wall. But 60 degrees according to your visual you showed with your arm, was from the ceiling. It would be 30 degrees from the wall.
I like it and will give it a go. At that angle do they on poop on each other if roosting underneath each other? I read one recommendation for bars to be 12 inches apart vertically and horizontally but that seems very spread out. Yours seems less than 12 inches horizontally. If thats okay, then ill try this!
We have one pre-made chicken coop that someone gave us. Our comment is that you couldn't find wood that poorly made in a hardware store. It's always better and stronger when you build it yourself. We made a chicken tractor that was picked up by a tornado and thrown 100 feet against a telephone pole. It was destroyed. We unwrapped it from the pole, replaced a couple of broken 2x2s, fixed some damaged hardware cloth, and screwed it back together. We still use it today!
You could, but they'd just say "Bawk, Bawk, Bawk!". Translated, it means "A bunch of us went for a fall when our owners were too cheap to build us a sturdy roost! I hope they learned."
Some we make are about 13 inches apart and others about 15 inches apart. It all depends on the size of your flock. We made a smaller one for juveniles and the bars are only 8-10 inches apart. Thanks for watching!
Don’t know if I have any grubs or not? But I do have all kinds of beetles of different sizes and colors. Which come out at night. They must have holes dug in the green that they come in and out of. If you see one you got to grab it quick or it disappears. I’ll grab them when I see em and toss them in the coop and the chickens go after them pretty quickly! But my chickens also tree range and I have a few motion lights on both sides of my garage pretty close to where my coop is. The chickens will stay out free ranging way pass dark as long as the motion lights are on its almost like daylight to them. Chicken will mossy into the coop around midnight to 1am and finally settle down on their roosts. But they sure like hunting for the bugs under the motion lights. I think they catch more bugs from dusk to midnight then they catch all day? Just a good thing I don’t want to go to bed early! Otherwise my coop wouldn’t get closed up at night. As it is sometimes I forget to go out and close up the coop. My coop a little over 3 ft off the ground to the floor with part of the run enclosed underneath the coop. So far I haven’t had any predators try getting in my coop yet thank goodness! Maybe between the coop being up in the air and the motion lights that might help keep the predators away I’m hoping? Least I haven’t lost any chickens in quite a while and surprisingly the ones I have lost have been killed during the day. I caught a huge hawk one day on top of one of my chickens. Fortunately I was able to scare the hawk off before it harmed my chicken. You know, that chicken never thanked me either! LOL
Hi, I finally made the chicken roost for my 6 heavy breed chickens who are now 6 months old with 4 roost bars and the chickens are roosting well in it, thank you. However there are 2 problems I noticed, first the chickens all prefer to go to the top roost bar. 2nd problem is that the chickens can go up the roost bars step by step but they cannot go down the same way. They jump from the top roost to the ground. The height of the top roost is about 5.5 Feet from the ground. The ground is deep litter. I am afraid they can injure themselves or have a bumblefoot infection of the feet. Did you have this problem? Is there a way to make them go down step by step instead of jumping down from the top roost?
What you describe is completely normal. Chickens always want the highest spot. It's a sign of dominance and confidence. Our jump down in the morning and we've never noticed an injury. When we open the barn door, we have to step to the side or we'll get hit by flying birds! Sounds like you have a normal healthy flock. Best wishes for continued success!
They don’t have a single area. Some dust bath in the coop. Some beside the house. Some in a mole hole I would like to fill in LOL. We don’t use sand for our chickens. Quail on our farm do use sand though.
they seem to be over top of one another lined up so when they do the deed it will land on the chicken below, maybe increate the angle so when the decide to turn around the other way they don't drop chicken mines on each other lol
A quick one, which roost bar size do you recommend for heavy breeds? A 2x2, or a 2x3 flat side up or a 2x4 flat side up, or a 2x4 narrow side up? It is such a dilemma. The coolest winter I get is in the 60s.
We use split 2x4s and with 4’ wide bars, we haven’t had any problems. We first made the side bars out of 2x2s and those would break so now we use 2x4s on the side. You won’t have any problems using 2x2 roost bars.
The bottom is at 30 degrees so it will sit flat to the ground. The top is at 60 degrees because we add that extension to push it away from the wall, and the 60 degree cut makes it easier to attach. Without the horizontal extension, we would lose the top roost. Hope that makes sense.
Some we make are about 13 inches apart and others about 15 inches apart. I like 15 inches. It all depends on the size of your chickens. We made a smaller one for juveniles and the bars are only 8-10 inches apart. Why 60 degrees? ...it seems to work and takes up less space in the coop. Thanks for watching!
@@HappyWifeAcres Thank you. I thought the higher the angle, the higher the chance of chickens pooping over each other. That is why I was thinking of 45 degree angle. What is your experience with 60 degrees? Is there a way of having removable roost bars instead of permanently attached roost bars in your design?
We've never made them with removable bars, but it could be done. We don't have too big of a problem with them pooping on each other. Chicken poop is normally thick like clay, so it falls off of the chicken below. Occasionally one will get diarrhea and make a mess of the chicken below, but it's not that common and they clean it off in dust baths. In our coop, we need the space and we need them to pack in tightly for winter so they stay warm and generate heat. We never say that what we do is right, just right for us. Farming is experimentation! Try different ways to see what works for you.
The older ones get higher roosts, as do the ones that go to bed earlier (usually the old ones!). For us, the roost ladder uses less space. We have some horizontal roost bars (old wooden ladder and shingles). Each bird has its own preferred space. Sometimes there's a bit of shoving at bed time, but no real fights. They're too tired! Thanks for watching.
Okay I followed you through the video, but I have to admit you lost me when you showed the shorter chicken roosts. It sounded like you said the smaller chickens used the smaller ones but I'm puzzled how on gods green earth did you teach your birds the difference between the larger and smaller roost?😲 🤔 Loved your video! ❤
We build the smaller roosts for the smaller birds and hand place them at night. But as you probably know, it's hard to teach a chicken ANYTHING! They're only good at a few things, like eating, pooping, laying an egg, and tearing up landscaping!
You can find cheap angle finders at Harbor Freight or Lowes/Home Depot. It's farm work, so you don't have to be precise. The ladder is at approximately a 60 degree angle from the ground (30 degrees off the wall). It does tend to make your brain hurt a little, but you can always hold it in place to confirm you're measuring correctly. Again, don't stress if you're a few degrees off. Thanks for watching and good luck!
I made 2 of these roosts a few weeks ago. Im new to building stuff so I stood it up on a wall and used a level to get the angle of the bars right. I had never built anything before this but with the help of my 11 year old we got it done. I did leave the 2x4s whole rather than cutting them in half. I'm not quite ready for a table saw yet. It is sturdy and the chickens love them.
Only Red Cedar should be use in a chicken roost ! The center of a Red Cedar tree contains natural oils....... which no lice or insect will go near ! Lice move from bird to bird at night when they are most active. Also......nesting boxes should always be made from Red Cedar ! Only the center of the tree..... red !
Thanks for the advice, but with a top choice pine 2x4 costing $11 now, some of just aren't wealthy enough to buy center cut red cedar. Many aren't wealthy enough to buy pine! Parasites are everywhere, just like worms and yeast and bacteria. There are methods to keep them under control, but healthy chickens do a good job of controlling parasites and even e-coli and salmonella (which all chickens have). Nothing will eliminate parasites and bacteria, but healthy chickens with adequate space to live to a decent job of it. That's been our experience over 5 years with nearly 350 chickens.
@@robertpattillo2503 Not sure what your using the " Mulch " for....but Red Cedar is " red " . If its not red its not Red Cedar. Or the equal of Red Cedar. The red part of Red Cedar has natural oils in it preventing it from rotting. I repels insects. Thats why Red Cedar is used in cedar chests. To keep moths out.
I didn’t build my chickens roost free standing. But instead I made mine on hinges so the roost will fold up and lock against my ceiling of my coop and leave the coop floor completely opened for cleaning. No having to crawl behind the roost or have to move it somewhere else when you’re having to clean the coop! Also built mine all out of 2x4’s cause I read somewhere the larger boards were better for the chickens feet. Whether it is or not, I have no idea? But that’s what I did anyway! With wood costs increasing using less wood would help the pocket book! Nice boost either way! You actually had the right idea if you ever wanted to use hinges on your roost as I have. Just need a couple flat pieces of plywood on both side of the roost and the boards you put on the roost wall to have the space to put your hinges on. Then you could fold up your roost completely out of your way by having a rope or some kind of a latch to hold the roost up over your head. Another thing I learned is you want least 12 “ away from the wall for your closest roost to keep the chicken from crapping down the sides of the wall. Learned that the hard way too! LOL But wasn’t hard to fix!
great idea im definitely gonna incorporate hinges into the design, never would have thought of that. and also i think if you have long and cold winters the wider 2x4 allows their feet to be covered better by their bodies at night, if your in a warmer ares on end is better
They grab onto the thinner boards with their feet and sit on them in the winter to keep warm. And snuggle with a neighbor chicken. Most of them roost on these but we also have some flat surfaces for chickens that like to be different.
Great thinking ghostridergale…been considering those points myself. Still in the drawing board figuring out how I’m going to incorporate all that into my roost bars.
🤣 yo I’m here cuz I’m bout to make one for my momma. And dis woman is amazingly funny and very detailed 😎💯💯 thank you keep it up 👊🏽
Thank you for this video. My dad and I made two of these roosts for our coop and I'm really happy with how they turned out. Your instructions were easy to follow and the roosts came together easily.
Hi there Happy Wife! Thank you for the informative and great video! I am getting ready to relocate my chicken girls from an old handmade coop into a small metal shed and I needed to know how and what type of lumber to use. You've answered my question and I'm way beyond thankful for your detailed video! Thanks again and God bless!
Thank you! Great Job. Just starting and taking your advice.
That’s pretty helpful. Our coop is tall but kind of narrow. We’re new to chickens and I’ve been all over the Internet looking at various things. Thank you! I believe this is pretty much what we’ll do for ours (we’re running dual purpose birds).
Thanks for filming this video 👌🏼🏴👍🏼
Awesome thank you this will be next project. For brother's and his women's new chicks.
Thank you every much I enjoy the hall video it definitely put a smile on my face
Thank you for sharing 🤗
Thank you so much for showing this!
You are very welcome!
Love it 🌹 thank you from tunisia 🇹🇳
Thank you for sharing.👍
Awesome roosts, and a whole bunch of chickens :-)
Great video, thank you for sharing. 👍
Thank You!
Nice roosts thanks for sharing...👍
Great, simple info that I've been looking for.. thank you!
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching.
Thanks.
This was the greatest video. Got my sub and my attention from now on.
Glad you found us!
Love it,thanks
So awesome
Did I miss how far apart the Reus bars are supposed to be?
Very nice
From morocco ❤
ابتسامتك جميلة ❤
What’s the distance between each bar?
I was looking for this to. She never mentioned how far apart to screw each perch.
@W1CKER777 12 inches apart if building for standard breed. We also answered this in one of the other questions on this video.
When I first watched this and you said 60 degrees I thought you meant the distance from the wall. But 60 degrees according to your visual you showed with your arm, was from the ceiling. It would be 30 degrees from the wall.
I like it and will give it a go. At that angle do they on poop on each other if roosting underneath each other? I read one recommendation for bars to be 12 inches apart vertically and horizontally but that seems very spread out. Yours seems less than 12 inches horizontally. If thats okay, then ill try this!
I bought a chicken house building. The roost bars were put in by someone that knew nothing about chickens. I will be putting in new roosts for them.
We have one pre-made chicken coop that someone gave us. Our comment is that you couldn't find wood that poorly made in a hardware store. It's always better and stronger when you build it yourself. We made a chicken tractor that was picked up by a tornado and thrown 100 feet against a telephone pole. It was destroyed. We unwrapped it from the pole, replaced a couple of broken 2x2s, fixed some damaged hardware cloth, and screwed it back together. We still use it today!
how far apart are the bars?
I wanna ask the chickens what happened with the old roost!!! :D Thanks for the instructions!
You could, but they'd just say "Bawk, Bawk, Bawk!". Translated, it means "A bunch of us went for a fall when our owners were too cheap to build us a sturdy roost! I hope they learned."
Lol. Ask me how I know too. Just had one break.
جميل جدا ❤
Looks great, but do they poop on the chickens below?
Some get pooped on, but normal poop is like clay and it just rolls off. Wet poop, not so much though. But chickens naturally want to roost.
Thank you! How far apart does each roost bar go?
Some we make are about 13 inches apart and others about 15 inches apart. It all depends on the size of your flock. We made a smaller one for juveniles and the bars are only 8-10 inches apart. Thanks for watching!
Don’t know if I have any grubs or not? But I do have all kinds of beetles of different sizes and colors. Which come out at night. They must have holes dug in the green that they come in and out of. If you see one you got to grab it quick or it disappears. I’ll grab them when I see em and toss them in the coop and the chickens go after them pretty quickly! But my chickens also tree range and I have a few motion lights on both sides of my garage pretty close to where my coop is. The chickens will stay out free ranging way pass dark as long as the motion lights are on its almost like daylight to them. Chicken will mossy into the coop around midnight to 1am and finally settle down on their roosts. But they sure like hunting for the bugs under the motion lights. I think they catch more bugs from dusk to midnight then they catch all day? Just a good thing I don’t want to go to bed early! Otherwise my coop wouldn’t get closed up at night. As it is sometimes I forget to go out and close up the coop. My coop a little over 3 ft off the ground to the floor with part of the run enclosed underneath the coop. So far I haven’t had any predators try getting in my coop yet thank goodness! Maybe between the coop being up in the air and the motion lights that might help keep the predators away I’m hoping? Least I haven’t lost any chickens in quite a while and surprisingly the ones I have lost have been killed during the day. I caught a huge hawk one day on top of one of my chickens. Fortunately I was able to scare the hawk off before it harmed my chicken. You know, that chicken never thanked me either! LOL
Hi,
I finally made the chicken roost for my 6 heavy breed chickens who are now 6 months old with 4 roost bars and the chickens are roosting well in it, thank you. However there are 2 problems I noticed, first the chickens all prefer to go to the top roost bar. 2nd problem is that the chickens can go up the roost bars step by step but they cannot go down the same way. They jump from the top roost to the ground. The height of the top roost is about 5.5 Feet from the ground. The ground is deep litter. I am afraid they can injure themselves or have a bumblefoot infection of the feet. Did you have this problem? Is there a way to make them go down step by step instead of jumping down from the top roost?
What you describe is completely normal. Chickens always want the highest spot. It's a sign of dominance and confidence. Our jump down in the morning and we've never noticed an injury. When we open the barn door, we have to step to the side or we'll get hit by flying birds! Sounds like you have a normal healthy flock. Best wishes for continued success!
@@HappyWifeAcres That's great. Thank you.
Thats a lot of chickens. I own 30 chickens and try to find ways to build a good chicken roost.
But with so many chickens, how big is their sandbath?
They don’t have a single area. Some dust bath in the coop. Some beside the house. Some in a mole hole I would like to fill in LOL. We don’t use sand for our chickens. Quail on our farm do use sand though.
they seem to be over top of one another lined up so when they do the deed it will land on the chicken below, maybe increate the angle so when the decide to turn around the other way they don't drop chicken mines on each other lol
It's surprising how that doesn't happen much, unless one squirts something watery out. Poop just bounces off. Thanks for watching!
A quick one, which roost bar size do you recommend for heavy breeds? A 2x2, or a 2x3 flat side up or a 2x4 flat side up, or a 2x4 narrow side up? It is such a dilemma. The coolest winter I get is in the 60s.
We use split 2x4s and with 4’ wide bars, we haven’t had any problems. We first made the side bars out of 2x2s and those would break so now we use 2x4s on the side. You won’t have any problems using 2x2 roost bars.
@@HappyWifeAcres Thanks
@@HappyWifeAcres The top angle of the 2x4 is 60° but the bottom angle is 30°. Why is that? Shouldn't both angles be 60°?
The bottom is at 30 degrees so it will sit flat to the ground. The top is at 60 degrees because we add that extension to push it away from the wall, and the 60 degree cut makes it easier to attach. Without the horizontal extension, we would lose the top roost. Hope that makes sense.
@@HappyWifeAcres Thank you for your kind help. Now it is quite clear.
Nice video, thanks.
What is the distance between each roost bar?
Why not 45 degrees instead of 60 degrees?
Some we make are about 13 inches apart and others about 15 inches apart. I like 15 inches. It all depends on the size of your chickens. We made a smaller one for juveniles and the bars are only 8-10 inches apart. Why 60 degrees? ...it seems to work and takes up less space in the coop. Thanks for watching!
@@HappyWifeAcres Thank you.
I thought the higher the angle, the higher the chance of chickens pooping over each other. That is why I was thinking of 45 degree angle. What is your experience with 60 degrees?
Is there a way of having removable roost bars instead of permanently attached roost bars in your design?
We've never made them with removable bars, but it could be done. We don't have too big of a problem with them pooping on each other. Chicken poop is normally thick like clay, so it falls off of the chicken below. Occasionally one will get diarrhea and make a mess of the chicken below, but it's not that common and they clean it off in dust baths.
In our coop, we need the space and we need them to pack in tightly for winter so they stay warm and generate heat. We never say that what we do is right, just right for us. Farming is experimentation! Try different ways to see what works for you.
@@HappyWifeAcres Thank you.
I will see what modifications I can do to suit my setup.
@@silverdesert2970 you can clearly see poops on lower bars. 45 or lesser is better and healthy
How far apart are each Perch you don't sigh
How far apart are the resting bars from each other did not hear that in the video
They are about 12-14 inches apart. Some are shorter, some taller. It depends on bird size. Some are made for juveniles or bantams.
Hi, how many horizontal bars will each of the 2 roosts have?
That will depend on how far apart each perch is which was never mentioned
12" for regular sized hens
Don't chickens fight for a higher bar? Wouldn't horizontal roosts be better?
The older ones get higher roosts, as do the ones that go to bed earlier (usually the old ones!). For us, the roost ladder uses less space. We have some horizontal roost bars (old wooden ladder and shingles). Each bird has its own preferred space. Sometimes there's a bit of shoving at bed time, but no real fights. They're too tired! Thanks for watching.
I saw th the intro and I said I might subscribe guess what I did😂
WHAT IS THE DISTANCE BETWEEN BARS?
The distance between bars can vary depending on the size of your chickens. For standard size chickens, the bars should be at least 12" apart.
What kind of angle finder is that or brand where can we find?? TYIA
It’s nothing specific. I think I bought it at Harbor Freight but you could find it at any big box hardware store. It comes in handy!
How far apart ?
Anyone figure out how far apart…
How far apart is each roost bar?
About a foot, although they could be 10” depending on the size of your birds.
Do chickens know not to poop on each other if facing different ways?
Okay I followed you through the video, but I have to admit you lost me when you showed the shorter chicken roosts.
It sounded like you said the smaller chickens used the smaller ones but I'm puzzled how on gods green earth did you teach your birds the difference between the larger and smaller roost?😲 🤔
Loved your video! ❤
We build the smaller roosts for the smaller birds and hand place them at night. But as you probably know, it's hard to teach a chicken ANYTHING! They're only good at a few things, like eating, pooping, laying an egg, and tearing up landscaping!
Why are the roosts angled at 60 degrees? Don't the chickens poop on each other?
If they are facing forward then no. We chose this angle because it works for us.
Angles terrify me! How do you know what degree of angle to make??? (Newbie here)
You can find cheap angle finders at Harbor Freight or Lowes/Home Depot. It's farm work, so you don't have to be precise. The ladder is at approximately a 60 degree angle from the ground (30 degrees off the wall). It does tend to make your brain hurt a little, but you can always hold it in place to confirm you're measuring correctly. Again, don't stress if you're a few degrees off. Thanks for watching and good luck!
I made 2 of these roosts a few weeks ago. Im new to building stuff so I stood it up on a wall and used a level to get the angle of the bars right. I had never built anything before this but with the help of my 11 year old we got it done. I did leave the 2x4s whole rather than cutting them in half. I'm not quite ready for a table saw yet. It is sturdy and the chickens love them.
@@Mel-Bee301 Nice to hear and congratulations on a successful building project!
They don't poop on each other on this roost ? Mine are
They do, but most of the time the poop isn't liquid and it just rolls off the bird below.
You didn't give a measurement between roosting bars
Wont they poop on each other with that roost bar?
If they face forward then no.
Looks too close together. Lots of crap on top of the lower birds.
Only Red Cedar should be use in a chicken roost ! The center of a Red Cedar tree contains natural oils....... which no lice or insect will go near ! Lice move from bird to bird at night when they are most active. Also......nesting boxes should always be made from Red Cedar ! Only the center of the tree..... red !
Thanks for the advice, but with a top choice pine 2x4 costing $11 now, some of just aren't wealthy enough to buy center cut red cedar. Many aren't wealthy enough to buy pine! Parasites are everywhere, just like worms and yeast and bacteria. There are methods to keep them under control, but healthy chickens do a good job of controlling parasites and even e-coli and salmonella (which all chickens have). Nothing will eliminate parasites and bacteria, but healthy chickens with adequate space to live to a decent job of it. That's been our experience over 5 years with nearly 350 chickens.
@@HappyWifeAcres Its just an option. Red Cedar can be found along many road ways / highways. Free of charge.
How can you be sure that the ceder mulch you get is red ceder and from the center of the tree?
@@robertpattillo2503 Not sure what your using the " Mulch " for....but Red Cedar is " red " . If its not red its not Red Cedar. Or the equal of Red Cedar. The red part of Red Cedar has natural oils in it preventing it from rotting. I repels insects. Thats why Red Cedar is used in cedar chests. To keep moths out.
how do you know?
lol
wrong man. chicken like the height maximum they can reach