Question on my first coop

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ChrissyNC

ChrissyNC

In the Brooder
12 Years
Mar 7, 2007
84
0
29
Richlands, NC
I have spent the past few days building my first coop. It's 6 x 4 1/2 and about 4 1/2 ft tall at the back. If the three roosts I have planned, redlines in the pic, are about 4 feet long each, how many birds can I comfortable fit in there? I have 24 chicks arriving around April 11, but will cull down to just what I have room for. I also have a large pen area planned on the side of the coop, so they will only be in the coop at night.

Coop1.jpg
 
I've read in my chicken book that you need 9 inches of roost space per chicken, and 1 nest box per four hens. For a four foot roost pole, that is 5 hens per pole drawn, thus 15 hens. However, you only have three nest boxes, which brings you down to 12 hens. So I suppose you should go with 12 hens, which works well with a 24 sq ft coop at 2 sq ft per hen.

-MTchick
 
Are they heavy breed chickens? I understood you should have about 4 square feet per hen with heavy breeds to keep from crowding and stressing them. You can probably get away with fewer if your winters are mild enough that they're out in the run most of the time, though.

Hm. This sounds like a good new topic. My coop is 4 x 4, so I don't want to have any more than 4 birds in it, even though I have plenty of nest and roost space for more. I wonder what other people have had success with?
 
This is my first foray into poultry, so I was kind of just figuring it out as I went along. I realized too late that the number of nest boxes can limit the number of hens. I will probably stick with just 10 girls or so for now. I have an assortment of Australorps, Orphingtons, Wyandottes and an Ameracauna or two on the way. Is it wrong to select chickens just on how pretty they are?
smile.png
 
https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/7677419/width/200/height/400[/IMG

Not sure if you can see it very well but this is 3 lots.
 
I don't have any questions.
1f601.png
I am new to this group. I was just going through some of the forums and seen this one. Was just giving tips on how we build ours .
 

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