Do your chickens sleep outside when it's warm?

[dutchbunny83]

My first batch of day old chicks were born last Halloween and shipped to me. This is my first time raising chickens. Since it was getting cold (we live in North Carolina so not freezing), we kept them in the house in our downstairs 3rd bath tub we never use with pine bedding and a heat lamp for 6 weeks before sending them out to the coop. We've always let them free range and they put themselves to bed at night.

Since then we've added a second coop and a pen/run. We let them free range all day, and at night close the gate to the pen (there is bird netting along the top to keep them in and preditors out (we live in the city so we don't have any real threats that could get through, and our backyard is surrounded with 6ft privacy fence). Since it's been staying warm all night, the girl put themselves to bed on top of the first chicken coop and stay there all night. I even built an outdoor standing roost (there's a total of 18 feet of roost space inside the 2 coops combined) to keep them from pooping all over the coop. They will use the roost I built during the day, but only sleep on this. I've picked them up and put them in their coop, but they run back out before I can get them all in. A few nights ago it was pouring down rain and there they sat, refusing to go in either coop.

I'm feeling bad for my poor little silkie roo because he's the only one in the coop and now he's sleeping all alone. Do other people's chickens do this when the weather gets warm???

 

[teach1rusl]

A few of mine took to wanting to sleep out on the run roost last summer. We have lots of windows and I have a fan in the coop, but I guess it was a little cooler out there. Our run is roofed with 2x4 welded wire, so I added hardware cloth above (and along one side of) that roost to prevent potential reach-ins. In my area, bird netting wouldn't cut it. Raccoons can climb like monkeys, so you might add a motion light out there if you continue to allow them to stay out. It would be very sad to wake up to an incident some morning...

That's a cute set-up you have there!

 

[dutchbunny83]

Thank you!
I haven't seen anything other than crows, squirrels, and the random neighborhood dog that gets out.
We want to move to a farm in a few years out in the country and I know I will need a lot more.
We live in the city on about 1/3 acre, so fortunately there's not much as far as predators (though our neighbors dog came running in through the gate with another little boy while they were free ranging and had we not been right there it would have been bad!)
I feel bad for my little roo all alone in there (and the mess they are making on this coop), but I guess they are happy out there? I don't know why they'd opt to sleep in the rain, I'm starting to think they don't like their new coop...