Do you close the Coop door every night?

[Carter57]

With the warm weather is it ok to leave to door open at night. I have had my flock since April and still learning. So far I have always shut them in every night.

 

[Cats Critters]

Please don't leave it open, any and all predators will see it as an all you can eat buffet. You might get away with it for awhile, but something will catch on quick.

 

[Urban Chaos]

I close mine every night - after some early losses I've decided to always go the safest rout. If your coop is well ventilated it should not be a problem. One thing you may try is to freeze jugs of water and put one in the coop to help keep it cool. I actually do this during the day in part of the run as our temps have been >100 all month.

Victoria

 

[augustwest]

Yes, we close the coop every night. I'm new too, but chickens are wierd at night. Like zombies. Zombie chickens! They don't react like normal and are defenseless. If something got in there to kill, you risk losing everyone. My run is safe, but not 100%. My coop is much more secure. We've lost 8 chickens to predators during the day (6 lost free ranging and 2 lost when a fox dug into our run-before we had a welded wire skirt) and none at night.

Hope that helps?

 

[clairabean]

Absolutely! We do have cross ventilation with windows (double hardware cloth!), and our pop door would do nothing, but let in predators.

 

[blueskylen]

we have a solid door and also a screen door on the coop - the screen door is reinforced with hardware wire and i leave the solid door open 3 seasons. was an easy door to make and works great.

 

[turtlebird]

I close my coop door every night. If you don't have enough ventilation, you could build a sturdy 'Fort Knox' screen door. I plan on doing that this week.

 

[AlienChick]

I close mine every night because the area outside the coop is not secure.

I do leave all the windows open (they have hardwire screens) for ventilation.

 

[NickyPick]

I'm in the Houston area, so we've got the high temps, plus humidity (Houston is a sauna). I lock mine up every night as my new game cams have shown some nocturnal activity. My coop has three big hardware clothed windows and vents on the 4th side, so I feel they're safe. Just recently, we've added a fan to blow air across the top. It's made it MUCH cooler in the coop.

 

[Sooner]

Mine is left open during the summer months but my coop is inside a secure pen.