Can chicken learn to use two doors? (aka how dumb are my sweet chickens?)

[Happyhenkeeper]

Our chickens are family pets and interact with us a lot. They love to free range in our backyard and we are trying to teach them to use their coop as a pass through so they can have full access to the backyard and their run every day. They are not learning….

They have an elevated coop to sleep in with nesting boxes to lay in. We have auto doors and one side opens up to a large dry and shaded fully enclosed run with their food, water, and dust bath and the other side opens up to our safe and fully fenced backyard with good tree coverage and a friendly guardian dog that keeps them safe from predators (plus they are big girls making them poor targets for hawks - They are safe free ranging all day). I would like the girls to be able to come and go to free range as they please and also be able to pass through their coop to access their food, water, dust bath, and cover. The reason we need food and water inside the run is that the aforementioned dog will eat all of their food and dig in their dust bath.

The problem is that they don’t seem to get it. They are going outside and staying outside without returning to eat, drink, etc (they have grass and water outside, but their layer feed is inside the run).

Will they figure it out with time? Or will they never understand passing through their coop? Do we just need to plan their fee ranging excursions for when we can let them in and out?

Thank you!!

Chickens are very smart, they sure know where the doors are when you want them!