Automatic door and feeding time

[Homesteadmom15]

Hey everyone. New chicken mom here.
I just recently got an automatic door and I love it. I put my feeders away at night to keep away predators. Is there anything wrong with the chickens coming out into their run in the morning without food for a few hours? They free feed the rest of the day until time to roost. In my opinion, if I have to take food out at dawn, it defeats the purpose of the automatic door. Just curious how others feed with automatic doors. Thanks for any input.

 

[rosemarythyme]

No they don't need food first thing in the morning, but they should have water.

My auto door is set for 7:45 and the chickens don't get fed until around 9:15, 9:30ish.

 

[Mouthpear]

Hey everyone. New chicken mom here.
I just recently got an automatic door and I love it. I put my feeders away at night to keep away predators. Is there anything wrong with the chickens coming out into their run in the morning without food for a few hours? They free feed the rest of the day until time to roost. In my opinion, if I have to take food out at dawn, it defeats the purpose of the automatic door. Just curious how others feed with automatic doors. Thanks for any input.

Simple answer is yes, it's fine. However Chickens will want to find food right away.

Two suggestions.

• Make grass beds. Link to post I made about them.
• Make an auto feeder. This or Similar to this.

Grass beds will give them food till you get to them.

If you have one of those ultimate, hands down the best type of auto door, Ones with a linear actuator, Then it is easy to have the door also open the feeder.

1. Fix some wire rope to the door
2. fix a pulley near bottom of door frame
3. fix pulley above door as high up as you can
4. fix pulley above the feeder
5. fix wire rope to heavy feeder door
6. done

When door goes up so does the feeder lid.

With locking lid.

If you want them to have access during the day but still have it Open and Close by them standing on it, and lock at night. Anchor the feeder to the ground and have the door "lock" it.

If it is one of those blah inferior string doors, then you can still do this by using counterweights.