Should I leave water and food in hut overnight?

There are a few old posts on this subject, worth a trawl, but the summary is that the majority do not. It becomes a problem with spilled food and water. Having said that I built a side piece which holds food and water and overhangs the coop. Anything spilled goes outside. There are two holes for access and a cover over the whole at night. This seems to work and they can eat here during the day if they want. It makes me feel better just in case I don't get to open them up in the morning for any reason.

No is the short answer.  Below is the rather longer one.

There's a tendancy for over protective keepers to treat chx like people and expect them to behave in the same way as we do.  A chicken house isn't a house in the same sense that we have houses with living acommodation, they are really just substitutes for safe secure roosts so in fact they only need to provide roosting accommodation.  Assuming they are "free range" there's no need to provide them with 'dining rooms' and 'lounge areas' or any floor space not needed for access to their roosts.   Also for convenience most houses also have nestboxes, though you can equally have external boxes if you wish.  Chx should have an exercise area outside in the form of a run or ranging area they spend the daylight hours in foraging.  Their food, water and shelter from the elements should be provided for in their run.  Placing feeders in the house just encourages them to constantly go in and out causing the house to be fouled more than necessary and increasing your maintenance load and making the roosts less sanitary.  Spilled food and water adds to the messy unsanitary conditions.

On this topic I often see houses with inadequate roosting accomodation with just a single roosting pole across a large area of floor space.  The exact opposite of what is required.  Roosts are best implemented as grills of roosting poles (rounded rectangular bars 5cm x 3cm is ok) suspended around 20cm above a droppings area so their droppings fall through the poles (rails) onto an absorbant litter covered floor which the chx have no access to.  The grill of poles can be sloped upwards from front to back so early roosting birds move away from the walkway.  This arrangement prevents them scratching around in their droppings and walkways can be kept to the minimum necessary to enable them to mount the perches and nestboxes.    Adopting this way of husbandry there's no need to poo pick the house and a good fortnightly clean out is all that's needed (though you can if you feel the need of course).  With no requirement to provide food and drink the house can be much smaller than many people think and a largely roosting area of 1sq foot per medium sized L/F is well adequate and allows them to huddle up for warmth in winter on cold nights.  Having lots of open floor space discourages them from roosting properly and they often sleep on the floor in the litter or in the nestboxes.  It's often the case when keepers post about their birds not roosting or using the nestboxes they've really caused the problem by not providing adequate roosts. 

A well thought through house design incorporates good husbandry practise catering for the needs of the chx along with easy of maintenance and robust durability in use.
 

All the best
HF

Hi

I used to leave food and water overnight but have found it has now created a rat problem for myself which l have now got to deal with.

All food and water now is in the run which the birds can access freely. The feeder l have hung up to deter rats also and it seems to be working at the moment.

Hi Snoop (and forgive me Hillfooter for barging in - just thought you might not have bantams),

My perches are 300mm from each other and 300 from the wall. They are staggered with the one nearest the wall being the highest. I wondered if this might be a little close, but most of the birds seem happy with this distance, including two Pekin bantams, and use all the tiers - the exception being two tiny white bantams who like to be at the highest point and prefer to be well above the others, so have made them a perch at 90 degrees at the end of the other perches. All perches are rounded 38x60mm. HTH

its each to their own as the saying goes , my dogs and  horses dont go without water at night and neither do my girls pretty much every night each   girl will always have a drink with the handful of corn i put in there each night an then they fly up onto the perches an go to sleep i know as i sneak the door open an watch them , if the house is secure then  you should not get a prob with vermin.

One other reason I like Lenhams.  This one's ten years old as is it's sledge.  You can't do this with a shed!
HF

These work perfectly well and no need to borrow Hillfooters tractor 

Wot and no fun!!

I'm not familiar with EGLUs but from what I've read and heard from users they are very practical and probably the best for parasite control as they have few hideaways and can be washed out completely clean.  If you like the looks and can afford the cost and they provide the basic features which are essential they should definitely be considered. 

They probably look more in place in an urban garden setting than in an open rural field and I certainly prefer a more traditiional wooden house for my purposes.  Also I'd worry about their attractiveness for thieves in a field as they look easy to lift are so valuable and attractive for many people.  None the less they and other houses with the design features we've discussed are all candidates for a successful set up.

HF