Our Australorps are 8 weeks old. Fully feathered and acting like little chickens. They return to their coop every night from their fenced run. . I lock them in to protect them for predators and then let them out at dawn. The outside run is where they have their primary feed and water troughs I still have a smaller version of the feeder and wateer inside the coop....although now when they return they just seem to find a place on the roost and settle down for the night Do I still need to keep a food and water supply INSIDE the coop or does the outside source for both suffice? If I remove it from inside the coop they would be w/o food and water from dusk to dawn. Thanks for any input.
Chickens don’t eat at night unless they have light. Some people feed and water inside the coop only, some in the run only, and some do both. As long as you don’t leave them locked up a lot past sunrise when they wake up in the run is fine. Do what is most convenient to you. But if they are locked up for hours after they wake up, you probably should at least have water inside.
I do water in the run and have their feeder in the coop. They are really messy when they drink so I didn't want all that spilled water in my coop rotting out the floor or constantly keeping the shavings saturated. I keep the feed inside because my run is not covered and also because it keeps the birds and squirrels from helping themselves to the chicken feed. It has worked for me for many years.
Because they are so messy I have been keeping all the food and water outside. As long as they can get to it in the morning I have found no negative effect at all.
