Do i feed and water inside coop?

[dirkandlorie]

I'm an incredibly lazy chicken keeper. I don't get up at the crack of dawn, and when I do get up I want to sit around for hours having my morning coffee. That being said, I built my coop with me in mind. It's large walk in (no bending), open air (no horrible odors, well almost.. We all know about those cecal poops, yuck) sand floors for fast easy cleaning, and an attached run with coop and run both built with hardware cloth top bottom and sides. I can just leave run door open and the chickens come and go as they please. Food and water in both run and coop cuz sometimes chickens lower on pecking order can be blocked by bigger older chickens. I can say that not one mouse has made it inside that coop in 7 years, so don't have to worry about bringing food inside. You know your situation better than anyone else, make your coop work for you instead of you working so hard cuz of your coop! (Also have to say my first coop was not so user friendly, had to learn the hard way. Oops)

 

[gtaus]

I'm an incredibly lazy chicken keeper. I don't get up at the crack of dawn, and when I do get up I want to sit around for hours having my morning coffee. That being said, I built my coop with me in mind.

Am I looking in the mirror? Sounds exactly like me, but I don't recognize the name!

make your coop work for you instead of you working so hard cuz of your coop! (Also have to say my first coop was not so user friendly, had to learn the hard way. Oops)

You know, I joined the BYC forum almost a full year before I built my coop and got my first chicks for laying hens. I read many, many, threads on coop design do's and don'ts. I also watched hours and hours of YouTube videos on the subject of coop design and construction. In the end, I have to say that I avoided many mistakes because I learned over that period of time what I thought would work best for me. I don't know if I can say I did it the easy way, but you can surely learn a lot by reading these threads on the BYC forum and watching YouTube videos on the subject.

After 3 years of having my coop and chickens, I am still very happy with my coop build and run. I have made some improvements over time, but my initial build design has worked out very well for me.

The only change I would make on my design is to have an access door/panel on the coop where I could shovel/push out the spent coop litter directly into the chicken run. Currently, I have a drop down panel in the back of the coop and just shovel/push everything into wheelbarrows and garden carts. But then I take all that litter and dump it into the chicken run. Not a really big deal, but it is just another step that I could have avoided if I had built a drop down panel in line with the chicken run.

When I was designing my coop, I never considered that I would want to take all that spent litter and put it back into the chicken run for composting. I thought all that spent coop litter would be dumped into a pallet compost bin. But, after a year of having my chickens, I turned my chicken run into a chicken run composting system so all my spent coop litter now gets processed out in the run and mixed in with all the other litter composting in place in the run. So, the only big improvement I would suggest to others is to add a drop down panel to shovel/push out spent coop litter directly into the run if they want to enjoy the many benefits of composting with chickens.

But, yeah, I have a full stand up inside the coop and can easily access all food/water/eggs without having to even go inside the coop or run. My chicken run has 6 foot tall fencing so I don't have to double over when I go into the run for any maintenance. I only have to refill my feeder and waterer about once every 10 days. With dry deep litter, I only clean out the spent coop litter once in the spring and then again in late fall. In fact, if I wanted, I could easily get by with just the spring clean out. I only have to spend about 5 minutes per day on direct care for my chickens, and that is mainly to open and close the pop door, gather the eggs, and check the status of their food and water. In return, my chickens spend all day making compost for my gardens and give me fresh eggs as a bonus. What more could you ask for?

 

[KGandE]

Nothing cruel about it at all - if it's dark they're not going to eat or drink, so no reason to give them access to those things at night, especially if it doesn't work well in your set up.

If you're concerned that they need to have water access as soon as the sun comes up (they really don't) put the waterer(s) in the run and install auto doors to let them out at the crack of dawn.

I see your point. Cruel was probably the wrong word, that is how it seemed to me when I was thinking about it, but I did not mean to imply that it truly is.

 

[Crazychickengirl2]

Do i put feed and water in coop or just assume they go to bed and let out in the morning with food and water in the run?

I think it's better to just keep in with them