Rain

[justacountrygirl]

Another newbie question! If it's pouring all the time (and let's face it, it is) do you put a feeder inside the chicken house or leave it outside and let them run out and feed in the rain?

I feed them in the rain,mine don't seem that worried about the weather only when it's snowing do I put food in their house.

Ah, OK. Mine are ex-batts so very featherless - makes me worry they'll get frozen in the rain! Currently putting food both inside and outside to give them the choice...

We've covered the run - we used to use corrogated plastic sheets, now we have an omlet cube so we use a tarp. It reduces the mud and it keeps the food dry.

I never feed in their house. Mine have a covered run too - combo of clear plastic cheering for roof and a tarp down one of the sides to keep the rain out. I'm going to get some more wood chip at the weekend to improve drainage.

Justa -you can get chicken feeders with rain covers as well, like this feeder

Thanks, all. We tried putting a tarpaulin over the enclosure but with the strong wind we couldn't stop it flapping about a lot and it scared them witless - we took it down in the end. Will try again with something more sturdy if there's a break in the weather - corrugated plastic sheets sound like the way to go.

Now have a covered feeder but have put one inside as well as the conditions are so horrendous today.

Anyway, they had a lovely time yesterday when the sun finally came out and they had a few hours pecking around outside. Can't wait for the weather to turn.

They will get more used to noisy flappy things when they are more settled and less nervous of you. When we first got ours they freaked out at the slightest thing and ds couldn't go on his trampoline without major hysterics! After a while we could happily trundle past their run with the lawn mower or flap tarpaulins and they would take no notice.