Sleeping Chickens

A while back I wrote about how a wily chicken figured out how to get in one of the nest boxes, even though we had put milk jugs in the boxes to keep them from sleeping in the boxes.

Nest Boxes and Milk Jugs

I ended up leaving the wildlife camera in the chicken coop for several days and learned a lot about chicken behavior from the pictures it took.  I have always wondered what goes on when it is time for them to go to roost.  Here's what I found.

At 5:53 pm (around dusk), one of the Rhode Island Reds (RIR) starts the process.  However, instead of flying from the floor up to the roost bar, she approaches the roost from atop the nest boxes. 

Within 3 minutes, another RIR has joined her along with one of the buff-colored girls.  Another RIR is on the nest boxes getting ready to join them.

By 6:00 pm, four are on the roost bar with others on the floor apparently "thinking" about it.

By 6:01 pm, all but one are on the roost bar.

And, at 6:02 pm, all seven are on the roost bar attempting to get settled.

Eventually everyone settles down for the night.

But, even after lights-out, they still get restless and shuffle around a bit.

And then settle down again a few minutes later.

I found this to be true all night.  Every hour or two one of them would stand up which would cause a disturbance among the others.  They'd all shuffle around a bit only to settle down again after a couple of minutes.  I'm not sure if they were even awake during these times.  

It made me think that, in regards to sleeping, they are not much different from us humans.