4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[cluckbok]

Sorry sorry I know it's been covered before, but we have decided to leave our eglu door open in summer and close it in winter or in bad weather conditions. The reason for this is we away on saturday night and back sunday morning, and we didn't want to keep asking the neighbour to look after our chooks i.e. opening, closing eglu door. So last night we tried leaving door open and it went ok, thank goodness.

 

What I'm interested to know is, do any of you do the same?, leave open only in summer and then close in winter? It means we don't have to rush down the garden in our P.J.s to let them out

[skye]

Hi cluckbok

 

We leave the eglu door open all the time in the summer, and close it to keep them a bit warmer in the winter. Our eglu is inside a fox-proof walk-in run, so we don't worry about predators getting into it.

 

If you have an eglu run then omlet do say it is fox-resistant. I know of plenty chicken keepers on this forum who leave the eglu door open for the girls to get up and peck about whenever they want.

 

Cheers

Skye

[Christian]

I leave mine open all year round as am away with work. If I am home and it is very cold, then I do close the door at night.

 

They should be fine in the eglu run, with the run door closed.

[cluckbok]

Ok cool Thanks guys, just wanted to check. You know what is liked being a paranoid chook owner!

[Egluntyne]

I leave mine open all year round too.

 

You do have to weigh up all the pros and cons carefully though.

[Stevie]

I leave mine open all the time too.

[Alexandra]

I leave mine open all year round apart from bad weather conditions. The reason is because last year we went away in the summer for two weeks, we had the food,water and cleaning out all sorted but we didn't really want that person running down at night and in the morning to let them out!!!!

 

This works really well and gives everyone a lie in!!

[chelsea]

Im a door shutter here!

 

Combination of me being a worrier and noisy chooks. The hens dont mind being shut in (I can see them on my cctv) and the routine suits them.

 

I think its personal choice really.

[alih]

we leave ours open all the time unless it's really bad in winter....different folk have different habits and I have been shutting my new babies in to settle them a bit and "Ooops, word censored!"ody seems to mind about it....if they were noisy in the morning they would definitely be shut in!

[Hen Watch]

I leave mine open all year round too.

You do have to weigh up all the pros and cons carefully though.

 

The pro for me was the convenience and I loved leaving the eglu door open 24 hrs. But then came a change of plan, unfortunately, the cons for me was last Summer the chooks decided to all bok bok loudly at 4am. The noise was horrendous. Then 1 week later same again at 4am. For my neighbours sanity (and mine) they now get locked in at night. (execpt for holidays).

 

Mind you, I'm sure your chooks are better behaved than mine.

[chelsea]

unfortunately, the cons for me was last Summer the chooks decided to all bok bok loudly at 4am. The noise was horrendous. Then 1 week later same again at 4am. For my neighbours sanity (and mine) they now get locked in at night.

 

I had the same experience, it was 5am and I could hear Ella from my bedroom at the front of the house!

 

I cant wait for winter and dark mornings so I can leave for work in the morning at 7am without having to worry they will disturb my neighbours between 7 and 8am

[cluckbok]

Oh dear guys!, I suppose it's trial and error eh! Well we gonna leave the door open again tonight and see what happens.

[stonekins]

Hi, sorry to put a dampner on things, but we have got an eglu cube at the school where I work and a fox managed to get at a chicken through the wire mesh and tore her wing off! This must have happened early in the morning and we hadn't locked them into the house (just locked in the run). We found Deirdre in the nest box minus a wing and sadly she had to be destroyed. We think that the fox just got lucky and managed to get hold of a wing as she turned around and didn't let go until he'd tore it off.

 

Since then, we have had to line the inside of the run with an extra layer of chicken wire so that we can allow the chickens to stay out late on summer evenings without the risk of a fox doing the same again. So far, three weeks on, it has not happened again. As they're kept at school, going up there at 10pm in your pyjamas is not really an option!

 

Good luck whatever you choose to do.

[Olly]

Really sorry to hear about your experience, stonekins - and I know that although it's rare, there have been others on here who have had the same thing.

 

Despite that knowledge however, I have always left the door open, I closed it about three times this winter when very very low temperatures were forecast, but that's it. I haven't had a problem, my girls are healthy and as far as I know, they don't wake the neighbourhood up when they get up.

 

It's a case of balancing risk (fox attack) against all the other factors and for me it just wouldn't work with my working hours, staying away overnight and other things, if I had to close the door every night.

[stonekins]

Thanks Olly, like you said, you have to balance up what works for you. The sad thing was that it was just our second day of having the school children working with the chickens and we found this had happened. Worse still, Deirdre was our only layer at the time so I had to lend school two of my girls from home until the others started laying!

 

With the extra wire, I'm pretty confident it won't happen again. It's much nicer to see them out during the lighter evenings.

[dancing cloud]

I tried leaving the Cube pop-hole open for my ex-batts, as I didn't want to restrict their new-found freedom and a couple of them really liked sleeping on the Cube roof (secure yard, no foxes). However my lovely Hope decided to walk round going "baawww, baawww" really loudly at 4.43 one morning and wouldn't be quiet no matter how often I mentioned nuggets and chips, so that had to end. I don't want to know that that hour exists and I'm certain the neighbours don't either!

 

I now have the every-evening performance of picking my girls up off the roof and putting them in the run, so they can climb the ladder and go to bed with the door shut. Maybe they think I'll forget one night, or maybe they just like the attention, but they're making no effort to go straight to bed rather than get on the roof first

 

If yours will be good girls and keep the noise down, I'd let them have the door open.

[Gallina]

I lost a hen through the mesh of the Eglu run as well some time ago. I really don't think it is worth the risk of leaving the Eglu door open. If a dawn fox visits, the hens will be traumatized even if they are not injured.

 

The Eglu has been designed to be foxproof; as soon as you leave the door open, it isn't.