Last minute coop decisions

[Witchychickens]

No auto door for me because like you, I'm at home, I work from home. If I'm a little late in the morning, oh well they got some coop time together, my coop is big. And in the evening I need to put food away in galvanized garbage cans so an auto door isn't going to relieve me from going out. I'm not opposed to auto doors, but I'm opposed to leaving food out all night (I will not tolerate rats.)

Random aside, do you use a treadle feeder? We are trying to head off the rat thing before it happens. I’m planning to keep the food in galvanized bins away from the coop (I realize this is overkill and probably not convenient but neither are rats) and was planning on using a treadle. I have no idea where to start on researching treadles that are actually rat proof

 

[Sally PB]

I think that’s why, I am home 24/7, my job is managing and running my home. My children are homeschooled, I am up early and can go out when it is dark to close it up.

I also detest technology. Lol

I don't detest technology, I just don't trust it.

Random aside, do you use a treadle feeder? We are trying to head off the rat thing before it happens. I’m planning to keep the food in galvanized bins away from the coop (I realize this is overkill and probably not convenient but neither are rats) and was planning on using a treadle. I have no idea where to start on researching treadles that are actually rat proof

Do you know that you have rats?

My feed is stored in a metal can, in the mudroom of our house. We don't have rats, but we do have mice.

I do not leave food in the run or in the coop overnight. That's part of why I do the open and close of the coop each day, so I can stay on top of a potential problem like that.

 

[Witchychickens]

I don't detest technology, I just don't trust it.

Do you know that you have rats?

My feed is stored in a metal can, in the mudroom of our house. We don't have rats, but we do have mice.

I do not leave food in the run or in the coop overnight. That's part of why I do the open and close of the coop each day, so I can stay on top of a potential problem like that.

Not sure on rats. We don’t have water close by, I’ve never seen any but I know we have mice, my cats are great at catching them. We do have foxes and I’ve seen one bear which was insane because it’s not that rural here.

 

[Sally PB]

So far, keeping the feed in a metal can and NOT keeping it in the coop/run overnight has (knock on wood!) kept the mice problem at bay.

 

[perkolator]

We manually opened/closed our coops for several years and having not grown up with chickens or livestock, the 2x a day chore got old real quick. I've had an auto door for a few years now and have both good and bad experiences - but I'm definitely in support of this tech and highly recommend having them as an option, even if you don't plan to use it much.

The attraction for me was mainly for the closing function at dusk - so I have freedom to do basically anything aside from closing the coop at sundown without fear of predators. My inlaws are retired and typically home at all times - however they lost their entire free-ranging flock of 30+ due to nobody being home at dusk on the day my wife's grandpa passed away, only one chicken survived; a really sucky situation to come home to after dealing with all that; a 2nd heartache that would have been been prevented with an auto door.

On the opposite of that situation, I've lost chickens due to having an auto door. Our auto door allows access to a 2nd larger run I made when I took away daily unsupervised free-ranging, due to losses in daytime. The run wasn't 100% secure without overhead protection, and was fine for about 1.5yrs....until a bobcat figured out they could get over the 6ft fence and wait for the door to open in the morning and deliver breakfast. Took several days and several losses to figure out how the heck we were losing hens and two mature roosters inside their run.

 

[KyCoop]

I have 2 auto doors. One on the coop one on the run. We did it for vacation purposes. The chicken sitter only has to collect eggs and do a head count.
It also offers daily freedom as we don't have to rush home to shut the door before some critter gets in.
We got the safest door in our research and opinion. I don't worry they will be injured or killed.