Make the coop the address, not just the shelter
Chickens navigate by habit, and home is simply where they have slept safely for the last few nights. Exploit that: for the first couple of days, keep new birds shut inside the coop itself, with feed and water in there with them, perches to explore and nest boxes to ignore for now. It feels strict, but this shut-in period wires the coop into the flock's mental map as the roosting place, and birds released after it almost always make their own way back at dusk within the week. Give them the run attached to the coop first rather than the whole garden, so the geography they learn is small and the coop is always in sight while they learn it.
The first evenings: dusk does half the work
Chickens are creatures of the fading light: as dusk falls, a strong instinct tells them to get up off the ground and roost. For the first week, be out there as that instinct wakes up. New birds commonly get it almost right — they gather at the coop door, huddle in a corner of the run or pile up underneath the coop, close to home but not in it. Lift each bird calmly, one hand over the wings with the bird tucked against your body, carry it in and set it on the perch, talking quietly as you go. Repeat nightly without irritation; most hens need two to four evenings of being posted through the door before the penny drops, and then the whole flock files in as the light goes, in pecking order, like a small feathered train.
Adding new birds to an existing flock
When the newcomers are joining hens already in residence, let them meet through wire first: a sectioned-off corner of the run lets everyone trade insults safely. Make the formal introduction at roosting time, placing the new birds on the perch after dark when the old flock is sleepy and least inclined to start anything. Pecking order will still be renegotiated at breakfast, so scatter feed widely and put out an extra feeder and drinker for the first week, because most bullying at this stage is really queue-jumping at a single food point. Hens introduced this way usually settle into one flock within days, and the shared roost teaches the newcomers the dusk routine faster than any amount of herding, since they simply copy the old hands.
Troubleshooting the stragglers
A bird who keeps roosting in a tree or on a fence has usually found somewhere higher than the perch, and chickens always vote upward: check that the perches are the highest sleeping option available, and lower or block the rival spot. One who lurks outside alone may be avoiding a flock-mate rather than the coop; watch the morning rush to see who is doing the chasing, and give the victim a second pop-hole or an earlier breakfast scattered away from the crowd. If the whole group misses the coop on a bright, moonlit evening, do not read defiance into it, because extra light delays the roosting urge and they will come right on darker nights. Whatever the cause, keep collecting strays calmly rather than chasing them in the dark, which teaches birds that dusk means a predator game. Because the dusk round matters most in the first weeks, KinsLe Care Teams can assign the evening count-in and lock-up to whoever is home that night, marked complete once every bird is perched, counted and shut in safely.