Coop w/attached run-leave ramp open @ night?

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Meeshmom

Meeshmom

In the Brooder
5 Years
Jul 29, 2014
17
1
26
So far, my chicks haven't been out of the run at all-it's attached to the coop and they just run back and forth. I've been locking them into the coop at night-they're really good at going in when we approach the coop/run. The coop is secure with hardware cloth around the sides, so no digging!
My question is this-since the door to the coop itself is a ramp, and I'm not an electrician (so automaticity is eluding me at the moment), can I leave the ramp down so they can come and go if I'm out of town?
And if I did that, should I put a light out there?

Just looking into the future....holidays and such.
 
We leave our doors open at night. Our birds wake up way too early for us. This way they can have breakfast and water before we let them out. They free range during the day.

As for the light, our birds don't like it. They go in at dusk and are up just before dawn. I think they prefer the dark.

Good luck.
 
I do in the summer just to allow more airflow and to be honest, the chickens are often up before me. It gets a little busy when they are all locked up in the coop. In the winter, I close them up.
 
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I leave mine open too. I might start shutting it in the winter when I'm up before the sun. Also I am worried that predators might be worse in the winter. I'm not sure how valid that is.
 
Percheron chick said:
I do in the summer just to allow more airflow and to be honest, the chickens are often up before me.  It gets a little busy when they are all locked up in the coop.  In the winter, I close them up.
Click to expand...


I made windows up high for air flow, but yes, we close everything in winter.
700

700
 
Quickster said:
I leave mine open too.  I might start shutting it in the winter when I'm up before the sun.  Also I am worried that predators might be worse in the winter.  I'm not sure how valid that is. 
Click to expand...


I think that's pretty valid. We do see more predators in winter. We're in North Texas. Mostly skunks and raccoons but we did see coyotes last winter. Not so much this year though. Thank God.
 
I have an attached run to my chicken coop as well but the girls normally free range all day (they were naughty yesterday so they're spending the day in the run today, they are NOT happy
tongue.png
but thats okay because I was NOT happy yesterday). Anyways, I feel very confident that my coop is predator proof but my run is not. I shut the pop door every night.

In 1.5 years we've only had one predator "attack" and it was just a black snake that got caught in my deer netting.
 
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Perfect! Thanks for the feedback. We're in suburban central Texas, so there's not many predators-especially not with the recent construction.
Thanks!
 
I'm with the others - I leave the pop door open at night so they can go out in the run until we get out there to let them free range. I'm in MN, and some of my predators are not a threat in the winter. The raccoons, skunks and possums go into a semi-hibernation (meaning they come out if it gets warmer for a day - in the 20's or so), and the hawks and eagles have migrated. My worst threat in the winter would be raccoons, mink and weasels.
 

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