Coop advice for beginner

[klkuri]

Hello,

Looking for advice on food and water inside. I was thinking a bucket with cups. I’m new to keeping chickens and we live in New Mexico. It gets pretty hot during the summer months.

Any experienced advice on where/what to put inside for my girls at night would be appreciated.
(The nesting box in the picture is blocked off until the girls get closer to egg laying age)

Thanks,
Kris

 

[mowin]

Your gals won't need food or water at night. They will be on roost. Some keep feed and water in the coop some in the run. With a small coop, it's more common to see it in the run.

 

[arizona_chicken_noob]

For the hot summers (and this would be outside of the coop) consider also a shallow wading area. I buy the black masonry mixing tubs from HD and put two bricks + a few inches of water in it. The chickens stand on the bricks, which wick up the water and stay cooler than the surrounding air.

Or plenty of folks use kiddy pools and similar with great success. I've noticed that my chickens do like to drink out of these in the summer (even when they get gross) and it never hurts to have more sources for water.

I dump these tubs out and refill every day in the summer. It's also nice to just have a visual indicator of "they DO have water right now", for me anyway, because I do walk up to my cup waterers and find them empty every once in a while.

 

[klkuri]

thank you for the advice mowin! Appreciate the great idea, arizona_chicken_noob. I will definitely use that in the near future.