Winter's coming and I'm bottling it on leaving coop door open!

[Doodle2U]

So, had the chickens since May - Eglu Cube.

We've been leaving the door open and they've been fine. I had it in my head that I was 'hardening them off', so I could leave the door open over winter, like other chicken keepers do but now I'm not so sure!

Was out the other night and it was very cold and it's only going to get colder! Am I being precious first-time chicken keeper here?

Door open or closed at night?

BTW, Cube is inside a large, secure, covered run. Might still be pics on my profile.

I shut mine in, this is my first winter though. I am fitting a light activated door on my pop hole.

Although my run is supposedly fox proof - Poultry Protection Pen from Flyte so fancy - I cannot bring myself to just leave them vulnerable at night. Disclaimer I live in a very rural area, so rural in fact they DO still foxhunt here, but we are still awash with the buggers.

Well we're urban Marmaduke but we live next to a big park and urban foxes have been spotted - mostly by me, when the kids were babies and I was pacing the landing with one or other of them over my shoulder!

I shut all mine in at night for various reasons, predators (foxes, stoats and badgers here), noisy cockerels and also because they don't do well in draughts and my henhouse doors are large.

Once you get in the habit of shutting them in it's not bad, I mostly shut mine after the DCs have gone to bed. But then I do have other animals that need doing in the evening so I'm out there anyway. I do like see the hens come out in the morning though as any problems will show up and you can deal with it quickly.

I'm the same Norks, I do the chooks when I do my ponies - once the DC are in bed.

During the day they are in a large electric pen, then before dusk I take some scraps and get them into their 'indoor pen' so they are reasonably safe to leave until later.

Except I've namechanged so my profile isn't there. Duh!

I started shutting mine in a coule of weeks ago to, seems far too cold at night. also if it is really raining it goes in through the door.

I shut mine in at night (middle of nowhere and have lost loads to foxes in the past).

I did once have a load of bantys that wouldn't go in their house and roosted in the trees all winter and we get lots of snow up here.

I have never shut mine in. In 5 years I haven't lost one to a fox or the cold.

We shut ours in.It is fox central around here.The local keeper told me he shot 8 foxes in 4 days the other week.I was out the other day and one strolled right past me,about 4 feet away,so when it gets colder and food gets scarcer,my chickens might be tempting.

We have a local hunt too,opening meet was today.

i found it a pita in the summer, when it was 11pm before it went dark. Now I can do it at tea time, so no problem at all.

Thanks for responses. Been wandering down there and shutting the door at about 6.30pm (before fire-works start although I'm sure there's been fewer fire works this year???)

I send DS (aged 7) out to open the door in the mornings - he's young, he can cope with these cold, frosty mornings better than his haggard auld mother!