Get Inside you Guys! Or maybe not .....?

[The Harlequin]

Hi

We hatched 9 hens and a cockrell in March (and added 4 more from friends who moved house and couldn't re-house theirs).

We built a run and put their original cage in it. My wife also paid over £200 (they saw her coming!) for a lovely coop.

All of the chickens roost on top of the old cage, which is in the secure run, and always have.

Now we're coming into winter, we're worried that this is not good for them. It doesn't get *really* cold in England (anything much below 0C/32F is pretty excepetional), but it does get pretty wet. We as humans would bolt for the shelter of the coop, but our chicks don't.

Should we leave them to roost as they wish or would it be kinder to/better for them if we deployed some techniques to get them to sleep inside?

Thanks
H

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Welcome, pictures of your set up would help.

Generally chickens don't like going in small dark or confined places, so I would guess your coop is too small, but more information is necessary.

They can technically sleep outside if you provide protection from the elements, but I guess that's not technically outside than.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I have friends with chickens that never go into the coop to roost. They have slept outside in the predator proof run for several years.
It can and has gotten down to -28C in that time.
As long as they are safe in there I wouldn't worry.

 

[diamondsilkies]

I don't have much experience with cold, as I live in Arizona, but I don't think it'll hurt to train them to go inside. Besides, it's always a good thing for them to know.

 

[Sneebsey]

I live in the UK, and my birds generally go inside to sleep. My biggest concern would be more predators than the cold. I wouldn't leave my birds out at night due to the risk from foxes/badgers/stoats etc etc. I would recommend starting to feed a small amount of 'treats' like sunflower seeds or scratch inside of the coop in the evening (perhaps in a small bowl), to encourage everyone to go to bed, or, if necessary, catching each bird and putting them to bed (which is truly fun scrambling around in the mud).

 

[Chickassan]

You could just take the cage out maybe?

 

[The Harlequin]

Welcome, pictures of your set up would help.

Thanks for the friendly welcome.
Here are some pics.
Assuming they come out in the order I load them we have:
1. Picture of the whole run.
2. Same from another angle.
3. Picture of the original cage, to the left, and the old car-park railing upon which the chickens roost.
4. Wider picture back to the house.

 

[The Harlequin]

I live in the UK, and my birds generally go inside to sleep. My biggest concern would be more predators than the cold. I wouldn't leave my birds out at night due to the risk from foxes/badgers/stoats etc etc. I would recommend starting to feed a small amount of 'treats' like sunflower seeds or scratch inside of the coop in the evening (perhaps in a small bowl), to encourage everyone to go to bed, or, if necessary, catching each bird and putting them to bed (which is truly fun scrambling around in the mud).

Thanks. My chickens are - you may be able to see now as I have posted some pics - in a locked and hopefully secure run, itself protected from the front by an electric fence.

I'm not complacent about predators - I lost another cockrell (rooster) to a fox in the summer before I bought the poultry fence - but my question is mainly if the cold and or wet and or wind is ACTUALLY harmful if they don't want to go in; or whether there's a good reason for encouraging them into the coop.

Thanks!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Thanks for the friendly welcome.
Here are some pics.
Assuming they come out in the order I load them we have:
1. Picture of the whole run.
2. Same from another angle.
3. Picture of the original cage, to the left, and the old car-park railing upon which the chickens roost.
4. Wider picture back to the house.

Your run looks good. The coop is much too small, and cramped. Perhaps you could build a larger area in a corner with a cover, sides and roosts. I don't think you will have any luck convincing them to go willingly into the coop.

Your temperatures aren't really bad, but if your birds are also wet or damp it could cause problems.

 

[The Harlequin]

Your run looks good. The coop is much too small, and cramped. Perhaps you could build a larger area in a corner with a cover, sides and roosts. I don't think you will have any luck convincing them to go willingly into the coop.

Your temperatures aren't really bad, but if your birds are also wet or damp it could cause problems.

Thanks. Interesting. The layers (9 I think) do willingly go in during the day, but only in ones or twos (of the 6 nesting boxes we usually find all the eggs only in the first, and occasionally the floor).
I'll look at your ideas.
My original question was or meant to ask whether it's actually an issue for the chickens always to roost outside in England's relatively moderate climate?