Should the chickens' feeders and waterers go into the garden, or should they - My Pet Chicken (2024)

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That is a good question! Chickens should always have access to their food and water when they are awake. But once they fall asleep again at night, they sleep well and don't get up to eat or drink. (The exception to this is if you have a broody chicken; sometimes a broody bird will want to get up to eat and drink at night, rather than during the day.) But since your chickens usually won't want to eat and drink after dark, you can choose to have your food and water outside or inside. It is done both ways.

My personal preference is to keep food and water bowls indoors if the yard is large enough to allow this. The reason is that it can rain on outdoor food and wet food can become moldy. Bad for your birds! Eating outside can also attract predators or rodents... or sometimes it just attracts pests, like squirrels and wild birds. You don't really want to waste money feeding the whole neighborhood chicken!

However, this is all personal preference. There are plenty of people who like to keep their feeders outside, and in fact many of the small starter boxes you can buy don't have much room to put feeders and waterers inside. Instead, many who have such small piles place the food and water bowls in a protected area outside, within a secure area. This protects the food from both rain and predators. Alternatively you can buyvery small automatic feeders and waterers designed for a "microflock",which can be hung on the garden walls so that the floor space is open.

If you have a preference, make sure you build or purchase a chicken coop that can accommodate where you want to place your feeders and walkers.

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