We just finished building our coop. All recycled materials except for the nails and the hardware cloth. We have a hanging waterer and feeder. I'm wondering whether it's best to put them inside the coop itself, or in the run?
I have the feed inside and the water outside. I am new at this, but it seems to work. Water gets messy inside.
Forgot to mention that we will be covering the top of the run with a tarp to keep the rain out and give the chickens some shade.
I have a feeder and waterer inside the coop and outside in the run (which is covered). All seem to get used depending on where the chickens are. I did this because I had an original group then got 3 more and wanted to make sure there wasn't squabbling over the food and water.
I have a hanging feeder inside the coop. Outside I have an automatic fill dog waterer that works perfectly. I give it a scrub with a toilet bowl brush and empty it and allow it to refill. No chance of them running out of water and the feed can't get wet! However, I am down here where we rarely have freezes in the winter and I can leave the coop door open 95% of the time so they always have access to the water.
I have mine hanging in the pen as I have Hutches with no room to hang inside. I just found a way to keep the feed dry and how to keep the water Poop free. All from BYC members post. I love this forum.
I have 15 chickens ages 17 weeks to 9 weeks. I have 2 feeders in my 8x8 coop. The second feeder is left over from when part of the coop was sectioned off for the "babies". When we integrated we left it up, allowing for for plenty of room for all the chickens to eat and not be run off by the older birds. I have one large (3.5 gal) waterer inside, and another smaller waterer outside in the run. I'll be leaving them for the weekend soon, and plan to place the 2nd waterer inside while I am gone. They still have plenty of room to move around, lots of roosts, and shouldn't run out of food or water while I am away.
