Selling and going big -- 100+ chicken ideas

[Alabama Jack]

So, we've sold our house and close in a month. The buyer's realtor quote was "In my 21 years of doing realty, this is a first for me. The buyers offer is contingent on the coop and chickens staying." Here's our coop for our 12 chickens: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/933725/das-h-hnerhaus




So on to the new place. We have an offer in, but who knows if it will stick, and the place is 20 acres. The new place has two large barns, but we're thinking about building a dedicated chicken house for 100 or so chickens, split into three flocks for breeding and eggs. Does anyone have any coop pictures/ideas they can share for this kind of set up?

 

[lutherpug]

I don't have an answer to your question but I just wanted to say that the part about the contingent offer is amazing! Congrats! We may list our house soon and I'd love this kind of response

 

[Howard E]

I presume you know what your are getting yourself into by taking on that many birds? So in addition to the housing, will be housing for the various feeds each type of bird will need. But you have barn space for that? But also be aware that the other problems will be accentuated......things like rats, mice and other vermin who will be attracted to the feed.Then there is the issue of litter management....and predator control.....etc.

Anyway, back to your question..........to do what you want to do.......back when, there were generally two options used. One was a large, single house that would have been divided into multiple sections. Say a 20' deep by 30' wide house, divided into 3 10' x 20' sections, with either an outside door to each, or in some cases, an aisle through the middle with double hinged door and you used a push cart to take stuff in and out.

Second option was multiple smaller houses.......say 8' x 8' or 8' x 12' or 10' x 16' houses......and you would have as many of those as you needed to house as many birds as you wanted. This would allow you to pasture or free range your segregated classes of birds in many places, vs. keeping them all in one spot. So basically, it is to figure out what you want to do, then design a system to accomplish it.

The housing is remarkably the same. The attached photo is of a house near where I grew up that is about 16' x 22' and would have housed somewhere near 90 to 100 birds. It needed more ventilation, but note the interior is not much more than what most are using today, scaled up for size. The roosts (ignore the used lumber being stored in there) are above droppings boards. Nest boxes in the dark corners.......a bank of these on both back ends. So basically the same design features we use today.....just more of them.

 

[aart]

Better than contingent upon removing the coop and birds, right?

Here's one barn with multiple pens...not for 100 birds...but a spark maybe:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...barn-phase-5-great-barn-build-occupied-3-6-16

I would suggest multiple pens with separate runs, storage areas, hatching and brooding areas, etc, etc.
Here's another maybe more like what you're thinking:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/les-farms-the-barn-of-all-barns

I'm sure you can come up with a good plan....start thread and I'll help you plan ;-)
Good Luck!

 

[Alabama Jack]

Thanks for the great responses. We'll see if our offer on the house goes through.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

This is great news, very exciting.

I would advise...

Build the hen house big enough to house the number of birds that you want...BUT start small and go slow.

You have 12 chickens currently, so move up to 25 or 30 in your flock...if all goes well, next spring get another 30 chicks and raise them up and work on merging flocks.

Get some books on breeding, selection and culling your flock and work on breed improvement.

This sounds like such an awesome opportunity.

Congratulations...very cool.

 

[Alabama Jack]

Thanks Rock, that is exactly what we plan to do. Not all at once.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I can't say enough how this sounds like an awesome plan. I hope all goes well for you.

 

[bullrunslabs]

I am not sure what the climate is like where you live, but I am on the Oregon Coast,. Here we do not seem to have mice like I did in California, here we have giant Norwegian Rats! I HATE them and our barn cats wont touch them, but that is beside the point. Here we have found that if you can get your hands on old chest freezers for storage of feed, the feed stays dry, and the rats stay out! Maybe that will help with storing large amounts of food for the number of birds you want. We use them in our horse barn and our chicken/rabbit area. I have 43 birds currently and this holds their feed, bedding and hay for the bunnies just fine. Congratulations on your upcoming move!

 

[Alabama Jack]

Thanks Bull. We're using steel trashcans right now and they're working great. I just now thought about putting PVC 90's in a trash can for messless feeder.