okay to not have feed and water overnight?

[big medicine]

Once you birds are old enough to not require a light for heat, or you are burning a light at night to increase gain ( trying to get undersized meat pen to reach 4-H fair weights), and your birds are in a dark coop at night, I suspect most of the eating and drinking going on is of the rodent variety.

 

[Celie]

I have 4, one year old CornishXRock cross I raised last year and harvested as needed, instead of at 8 weeks. They live in the barn with the rest of the chickens, ducks, turkeys, and geese. I do not keep water inside the barn as ducks and geese are very messy when it comes to water and it would stay very sloppy if I did. They are let out at dawn every day and the doors are closed and latched every night after they put themselves to roost about dark thirty. The ducks are always the last to go in, when they see me coming. So my meaties have done well without having water overnight for a year. The 3 hens and 1rooster that are still with us are in molt right now, but as soon as they start laying again, I plan to try AI and see what the outcome produces. It would be nice to be able to have perpetual meaties without having to buy 25 at a time and slaughter them all at once. I do not slaughter them at 8 weeks either since at about 12 weeks they are the size of miniature turkeys and still tender and succulent. I just got 50 on Yesterday, I male and 49 female,1 dead and 1 that died soon after arrival, from Meyers hatchery.

I was hoping for at least straight run, but that's the way it goes, when you catch a special, sometimes!

I'm sooo sorry,I totally misunderstood your situation. I thought you were asking if it was OK not to give them water overnight as a very temp. makeshift situation. Meaties drink a lot of water from the time they awake at the crack of dawn to dusk and should have water during those hours. They should be fed from about 7 am until 7 pm or about 12 hours during their wakeful time of the day, unless they are growing too fast, which can cause potential leg problems. To determine this, weigh one of the average looking ones and compare it to the chart the hatchery publishes on tgheir site or in their catalog. If they are growing too rapidly, decrease the % of protein you are feeding, also if you put a tablespoon of unfiltered apple cider vinegar(Heinz makes one)into ach gallon of their water they will have better digestion and not get diarrhea. I just learned this on a flock maintenance thread. I think it had something to do with the pro-biodics. Don't be afraid to take a week or 2 longer to raise them a little slower, it can save birds from heart and leg problems and be more cost effective in the long run. You can free range them, but you still have to feed them. Just make sure they have somewhere to hide from predators, if you do, and that they are old enough to know how. You might want to put a gentle hen or two with them to kind of show them the ropes, so to speak. I have 3 hen that choose to stay with the 50 meaties I am raising right now, in the barn. The hens like the free food and have not made any aggressive moves towards any of the little ones. They are not 3 weeks old yet, so I will not try to put them onto any pasture until they are and the first few days under supervision. I hope this helps and again I am sorry, I misunderstood!

 

[karlamaria]

My chickens go to roost around 6:30 each night, leaving the food and water behind the closed pop door. Once that pop door closes they do not eat or drink until the next morning. In the deep winter ( when things begin to freeze ) I put there water in the coop on a tin can heater. Since we have hard wire completely surrounding the pen, we leave the food in the pen hanging about a foot off the ground . Pretty hard for creatures to get to the food with the pen completely covered over with plastic, and hard wire. The pen stays dry all winter being totally covered top to bottom, and keeps the coop warmer to.