Chickens escaping through the egg door?

Hi there!

I personally, would not be worried about then escaping when the egg door was opened, if you are just grabbing the eggs and going.

You will want to make sure it has a latched lock on the outside though to prevent them from forcing it open...or having a predator open it from the outside.

Have you had a minute to look thought these designs to get ideas?
COOPS

 

They don't tend to blast out the egg door, or any door in particular, in my experience. Except the one you open to let them out to free range--mine are a bit pushy there.

 

If you insulate you need a wall cover or they tear up the insulation. I wouldn't bother. Am in same Northern climate if not colder than you and don't use insulation or additional heat.

 

Really?!?! Any chance you could post a link to the rules and regs for chicken keeping in your city?

Ventilation is the key to avoiding frostbite,
adequate ventilation makes running a heater like throwing money down the sewer.

Oh, and, Welcome to BYC!

 

I agree with the others, that they aren't prone to bursting out the door, but if they did get out, they aren't going to go running pell mell off into the distance. They would begin eating the grass right there at the edge of the coop, move a little distance, eat some more, scratch some, etc. Chickens that are accustomed to their coop don't want to run away. When first let out to free range, for example, chickens orient themselves so they know how to get home.

 

I'm in Montana and I have our nesting boxes outside of the coop. As well as insulated. I don't run a heater tho. We insulated the nest boxes as well and never had a problem. I wanted a box attached outside because I didn't want to lose the valuable space inside that I may need on those super super cold days where they don't go out. They handle the super cold days well enough but they spent many days inside when we got a bunch of snow.

As for getting out, I'm going to say that it depends on how big it is. Mine is 4' wide and there have been occasions when I've opened it up and they were in there, either just finishing or just starting and some times, very few, but some times, they would attempt to fly out but it was easy enough to stop them, or let them if I was about to open the main door.

Here's the side view of the coop when we installed it. You can see the boxes and that is insulated the same as the rest of the coop. Boards on the outside, sheets of insulation and then plywood over that on the inside

 

Wow! I am very glad that where we live we have the explicit "right to farm" - no classes, permits and requirements...