help!! should i move my coop out of the rain??

[kanami]

hello, i’m still a first time chickie owner, living in bay area california and we have been getting rainstorm warnings, it hasn’t started yet but i’m wondering, should i move my coop to our covered patio? i’m not sure if the girls would be okay with getting their home pummeled with rain all night. would it affect their sleep? and their comfort at all? currently it is in a position where it would get direct hit from rain by the storm coming.

this is a picture from the coop sellers website for reference of our coop. my chickens free range the yard during the day (we have lots of trees for them to hide under) and then they retreat to the coop at night.

should i cover any windows? i already covered the tiny door window. i can post more photos of the coop! i’m just nervous lol! thank you

 

[Captain13]

I wouldn’t move it. The roof looks like asphalt shingles so it shouldn’t be too noisy. Now, if you don’t want racing blowing through the openings, that’s different. Mine has open sides and very little rain blows in. I get some splatter from the roof runoff but not enough to mess us the inside of the coop. But I don’t have a wood floor to worry about. The chickens should be fine out there.

 

[StinkyAcres]

If you are expecting wind I would cover the vents with something like fabric or furnace filters to keep the drafts and rain out but the ventilation still working. Don't worry about sounds bothering them at night.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Rain isn't an issue unless you get intrusion through vents, cracks, etc. Chickens don't melt but moisture in the coop is a bad thing. However the last thing you want to do is close up a lot of ventilation. You have a decent amount of vents so you might be able to get away with just having the ones under the monitor roof open, but I don't know how your wind/storms blow in your location compared to the orientation of the coop.

 

[3KillerBs]

A chicken coop *ought* to be perfectly capable of protecting the chickens from the rain without itself having to be protected from the rain. However, the quality of many prefabs is suspect, so you'll want to make sure that the rain isn't getting in.

Personally, since chickens HATE change, I think they'd be more disturbed by having their coop moved to a new place than by the sound of the rain on the roof.

DON'T block off your ventilation!

A minor amount of rain intruding into an otherwise dry and WELL-VENTILATED coop is better than a stuffy, airless coop in many situations.

Here's my article on ventilation: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/repecka-illustrates-coop-ventilation.77659/

If you find that you can't ventilate your coop properly without rain getting in due to the lack of roof overhangs, you might be able to do what I did when I needed shade for my coop -- set up a picnic pavillion over it:

Alternately, you could add awnings over the vents.