Coop door for enclosed run?

[catballou]

I've not closed my chicken door to my coop. Maybe once or twice in the last 10 years when it was really cold in the beginning of chicken keeping. It's all inside a run. So, you would really have to determine how secure your run is from predators and then decide how many security features are needed.

I'm comfortable with the chicken door being open all the time. I've also never had any predators breach my run.

Now, my heat lamp is secured by 3 different ways to prevent it hurting my chicks.

I didn't even have a door on my coop for 7 years. Until I lost one of my favorites.
It's closed up tight every night now!

 

[LCS1012]

Is a coop door necessary with an enclosed run? I am new to chickens. Getting prepared to build my first coop this spring. I have been looking at a lot of plans and designs and have settled on a coop and run all under one roof. I keep going back and forth between a manual door and an automatic door for the coop. The automatic door is my preference just in case we need to leave for the night. With having an enclosed run is an automatic coop door really necessary? If we were going to be gone for the night could the door to the coop just be left open?

Great topic- just came here to find out the same thing. We are building the NE Ohio area now and were trying to decide if we have a little door from the coop to run area open at all times or get an automatic door. Might make sense for in the winter to have the automatic door- due to weather, which I just thought about haha.

 

[Yucky_ducky_kentucky]

Is a coop door necessary with an enclosed run? I am new to chickens. Getting prepared to build my first coop this spring. I have been looking at a lot of plans and designs and have settled on a coop and run all under one roof. I keep going back and forth between a manual door and an automatic door for the coop. The automatic door is my preference just in case we need to leave for the night. With having an enclosed run is an automatic coop door really necessary? If we were going to be gone for the night could the door to the coop just be left open?

We have both. we can let our chickens roam free whenever we feel like it or enclose them. their door is automatic we set up, only took an hour to complete it. You can buy ones that are pretty cheap on Amazon. We got one that you hook up to strings that you attach to a home-made door

 

[neo71665]

My coop is open on the front and doesn't have a door.

 

[PippinTheChicken]

My coop has a door- we put a Chick Guard in the door so we don't have to open\close it ourselves

 

[TropicalBabies]

We have next to no predators here and very mild weather most all of the time. My coop is an "open" coop design (not much in the way of solid walls, just mostly wire) and my run is enclosed and my yard is enclosed... but I absolutely have doors. I leave them open 95% of the time, when I do close, it is because of weather or a new feral tom cat or just to feel better. I would rather have and not use than need and not have. Options are good. Don't make a big fancy thing of it (unless you want of course... BYC lol) Just secure. If anything ever happened to your first line of defense, you would have a second.

*** plus good for flock control.

 

[Borders3]

We free range our chickens all the time we have no run except when the Avian Flu was on the go so we have a chicken guard pop door that opens and closes automatically it also has the locking feature that prevents any wild animal from putting it's snout under the bottom of the door and gaining access. The only predators here ( North Yorkshire UK) are dogs and foxes.

 

[catballou]

I would definitely have one! Much better to be safe than sorry!
Lots of nightime predators are out there. A secure run may or may not be as secure as you think.
My neighbor just lost all of her chickens in one night. They thought it was ultra secure.