Feeding and watering while coop training

[Gene McCarthy]

We are about to receive 7 baby chicks. We've prepared with an in-the-garage incubator until they are feathered. When the girls are ready to be transferred to the coop how should I go about training them to enter the coop at night. Some say to lock them inside the coop for a week until they realize the coop is their home. But if I do that they still have to be fed and watered.

Let me describe the coop: It is a 4 x 6 coop raised above a sand floor sitting inside a 10x20 foot enclosed/roofed chicken run. The interior of the coop has three nesting boxes at one end and a 3 bar roost so it is pretty tight inside for 7 ladies. I used pine chips for the coop bedding. Two water cups with nipples are plumbed inside and gravity fed to provide water and a free standing circular feeder placed on a flat rock in one corner of the coop.

My concern is whether the ladies fresh from a brooder will be able to recognize that their water source are the little red water cups. Do you think there be sufficient water (with two cups) for seven hens? Should I add a light inside of the coop so they can see the water cups and the feeder at night and after being locked inside?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

 

[lazy gardener]

Welcome to BYC. You can brood your chicks right in the coop. Have you looked at the Mother heating pad thread? There is also an article about brooding chicks outdoors that was written by Blooie. I strongly suggest you brood your chicks with a heating pad cave instead of using a heat lamp.

I've not used the watering cups, so can not speak to that issue.

Your coop is IMO too small for 7 birds. The recommendation is for a minimum of 4 s.f. of open space in the coop per bird. By the time you add a feeder to that space, your birds are going to be seriously cramped. The birds also need adequate space to safely jump up and down from those perches. With 3 perches, there is barely enough room for them to get on the perches without being in each other's space.

BTW, just to avoid further misunderstanding, an incubator is for hatching eggs, a brooder is for keeping baby chicks warm.

 

[Gene McCarthy]

I suspect you are right about the coop being too small. Thank you for your suggestions.

 

[azygous]

First of all, an "incubator" is a device for keeping fertilized eggs at a constant and uniform temperature and humidity for three weeks until the chicks hatch out of them. Then the chicks get moved to a brooder, which is not kept at a constant and uniform temperature, ideally.

A brooder has plenty of space, open to the surrounding ambient temps with just a minimal single heat source for baby chicks to re-warm as they lose body heat due to the poor insulating qualities of down. This warming up is not a constant endeavor on their part or ours. They self regulate by moving in and out of a narrow "warm zone" much as a lizard or snake does to regulate its body temperature. A brooder should not be an oven.

Having a brooder is actually optional. You don't need one if you don't have older chickens that might threaten the safety of baby chicks. You could plop the chicks right into the coop and supply them with a heat source, (I recommend the heating pad system highly. See my article on outdoor brooding below) and food and water in those red cups and they're set for, well, the rest of their lives since they'll be growing into chicken-hood right where they'll be living. No future adjustment necessary.

As for learning to go in and out of the coop, they will when they are ready. They will already be familiar with their coop, and when the time is right, they will begin to explore their run, and they will learn to return to their coop at night, perhaps with just a little guidance from you.

As LG pointed out, you will probably want to add onto your coop as you see how much space large chickens require.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you have power at the coop I agree with the others, you can brood right in the coop and solve your problems. Some people like to brood in the house or a garage where the chicks are more accessible so they can make friendlier pets out of them, there are always trade-offs whatever you do.

I don’t use the cups either but from reading posts on here they should teach themselves how to use them. A lot of people like them. Hopefully someone with experience will chime in.

Chicks and chickens do not need to eat or drink at night. I you provide enough light they will, but a natural sequence is that they fill their crops before they go to bed and digest that overnight. They will wake up hungry, but that is natural.

Training them to go into a coop at night can be a bit of work. If you raise them in the coop they will probably return there at night after you give them access to the run but that’s not guaranteed. I often move 5 week olds to my elevated grow-out coop and keep them in the coop for a week or more before I give them access to the run. They still put themselves to bed in the run under the coop door. So I physically move them into the coop after dark every night until they learn to go in on their own. Sometimes they learn really quickly but I’ve had some take three weeks every night to get the message.

My brooder raised chicks typically start to roost overnight around 10 to 12 weeks of age. I’ve had some start around 5 weeks, I’ve had some go much longer than 10 to 12 weeks, but that’s a good average. With a different set-up you might get different results. Until they start to roost mine like to sleep in a group in a low spot. With an elevated coop that low spot is not in the coop. It takes some training to break that habit.

You don’t mention where you are so I don’t have a clue as to your climate. Snow and wind don’t just come in from the top, they can blow in from the side. Winter might make your run unusable. That means they could be stuck in that small coop for quite a while. That could lead to issues. If you leave them locked in the coop section for extended periods of time when they are awake you could possibly have issues, that’s fairly tight. Do you like to sleep in on weekends? On the other hand, if you consider your run predator proof and your weather allows, you can not lock them in the coop section only but leave your pop door open, even at night. That way they have access to that run whenever they are awake as long as weather allows. In that case you’d have plenty of room. Don’t look at the coop in isolation and the run in isolation, how you manage them is pretty important too.

Welcome to the forum, glad you joined.