HELP! Chicken Coop/Chicken Run too small?!

[Chicks4MamaJo]

Hi There,
I'm a new Mom to 15 Chicks that are now 6 days old. I have a mix of Easter Egger, Buff Orpington, Black Star, Barred Rock, and Rhode Island Red. The Coop I purchased is 8x5, so that is 40 square feet and it stated it can hold up to 20 chickens so I thought I would be ok with that and I'm trying now to lay out the space for where the chicken run is going to be built. The most I can go on the size of the chicken run is 12x12, 140 square feet. So after reading the guidlines of 4 sq ft for the coop per chicken and 10 sq ft per bird for the run I'm really concerned they are going to be to crammed. Is this really the case or am I going to be ok with that amount of space. I'm concerned, but I already have the chicks and I'm not sure what to do if this is going to be an issue. Should I consider giving away some of the chicks??

Thank you!

 

[csaylorchickens]

From my experience so far, I am new at the chicken thing too, the more room the better the girls are. I did not have a large coop, it is small, only 3x4 coop for 4 chickens, and it is turning out to be too small for them. Unfortuantely I have to make due with what I have because I do not have the money right now to expand the coop. But what I did do was expand the run and what a difference! I now have a 12x16 foot area including a 5x3 area directly under the coop for the girls to range. They were pecking eachtother badly drawing blood. I say if you can expand the coop try to do so, but the run is the most important because they will be spending the majority of their time in the run and it needs to be spaceous enough or crowding will occur.

 

[Chicks4MamaJo]

Yeah, now I'm worried they will end up pecking on each other. Based on what I've read I'm about 20 sq ft short on the size of the coop and 6 sq ft short on the size of the run. I'm going to measure out the run again and see if I can get at least a 12x14 run out of it. I'm hoping that will be good enough. Based on the standard measurements I've read so far though it does seem like the coop has the right amount of nesting boxes and the right amount of inches per chicken for the roosting bars though....If I have to make the choice to give away some of the chicks before they go into the coop in order to make them a more comfortable living space I will do that.

 

[Bryant Redhawk]

On the coop size question; the reason most say 4 sq. ft. per bird is for keeping them indoors for long periods of time (winter). I would worry more about keeping to the 10 sq. ft. per bird in the run than the coop size since most likely your birds will be out doors more of the time than in the coop.

In our case we have a coop that is 8' X 8' with 8 nest boxes on one wall. The bottom row of nest boxes is 14" off the floor.

That's 64 sq. ft. of floor space which would, according to "normal" figures, house 16 birds. My wife goes more by number of nest boxes than she does square footage, she has 4 birds per nest box, which turns out to be 32 hens, there are also two roos in there at night for a total of 34 birds in that 64 square feet of space for night time. No problems have been noticed. Our birds have an outdoor space (fenced run) that is enclosed by 200 feet of fencing and they also free range the farm since we don't close the run door when we are home, if we leave we put the birds into the run with treats and close the door.

I think most of the concern with space would be when you have to keep the birds closed up for longer periods of time (more than just overnight)

 

[Chicks4MamaJo]

On the coop size question; the reason most say 4 sq. ft. per bird is for keeping them indoors for long periods of time (winter). I would worry more about keeping to the 10 sq. ft.   per bird in the run than the coop size since most likely your birds will be out doors more of the time than in the coop.

In our case we have a coop that is 8' X 8' with 8 nest boxes on one wall. The bottom row of nest boxes is 14" off the floor.

That's 64 sq. ft. of floor space which would, according to "normal" figures, house  16 birds. My wife goes more by number of nest boxes than she does square footage, she has 4 birds per nest box, which turns out to be 32 hens, there are also two roos in there at night for a total of 34 birds in that 64 square feet of space for night time. No problems have been noticed.  Our birds have an outdoor space (fenced run) that is enclosed by 200 feet of fencing and they also free range the farm since we don't close the run door when we are home, if we leave we put the birds into the run with treats and close the door. 

I think most of the concern with space would be when you have to keep the birds closed up for longer periods of time (more than just overnight)

Ok, the coop has 5 nesting boxes so at 4 chickens per nesting box that would mean it could house 20 birds. So maybe my 15 chickens will be just fine in their coop. It's so reasurring to know that you haven't had any issues with pecking even with your amount of 34 birds.

 

[Bryant Redhawk]

I would think that as long as your run is large enough, you would not have issues inside the coop at night. All chooks will do the pecking thing as they set up their natural order of ranking in the flock. The thing you don't want is for a group to gang up on a bird since that can be the end of the one being singled out or at least that one bird would could be damaged. I'd just keep a watchful eye on how they get along and if you find the coop size is an issue, then do an addition to it. One of our neighbors has 12 birds in a coop/ run that the whole thing is maybe 64 sq. ft. and those 12 chooks also share the space with five guineas. He also free ranges when he is home and I have noticed that the guineas do not go into the actual coop but prefer to roost in the run at night.

When my wife was living in Canada she had 36 hens and four or five roos in a 64 sq. ft. coop at night. They had a huge run for the daytime and they did not free range there, because of all the predators and her pet wolf, Kemo. ( Kemo, got into her aviary one time and killed all her birds (chooks, pea fowl, pheasants etc.) big mess but it turned out she forgot to fasten the door.

 

[Chicks4MamaJo]

I would think that as long as your run is large enough, you would not have issues inside the coop at night.  All chooks will do the pecking thing as they set up their natural order of ranking in the flock. The thing you don't want is for a group to gang up on a bird since that can be the end of the one being singled out or at least that one bird would could be damaged.  I'd just keep a watchful eye on how they get along and if you find the coop size is an issue, then do an addition to it.  One of our neighbors has 12 birds in a coop/ run that the whole thing is maybe  64 sq. ft. and those 12 chooks also share the space with five guineas. He also free ranges when he is home and I have noticed that the guineas do not go into the actual coop but prefer to roost in the run at night.

When my wife was living in Canada she had 36 hens and four or five roos in a 64 sq. ft. coop at night. They had a huge run for the daytime and they did not free range there, because of all the predators and her pet wolf, Kemo. ( Kemo, got into her aviary one time and killed all her birds (chooks, pea fowl, pheasants etc.) big mess but it turned out she forgot to fasten the door.

Yes, our chickens won't have the luxury of free range either. We live in an apartment complex but it's like a rural apartment and the grass area behind our unit that into backs up against a forest. There have been sightings of a fox, raccoons, owls, and deer. So I'm a bit concerned about the predator factor, plus our landlord was so nice to agree to letting us have chickens and build a coop/run in the grass area we have to keep them contained since it's not our land space. Here is a picture of our coop. We'll be building the run over the next three weeks. Our 15 chicks will be a week old this Wednesday

 

[Chicks4MamaJo]

For some reason it wouldn't attach the picture of the coop

 

[Bryant Redhawk]

Wow, you have the same predators we get to deal with.

We use a double wire setup, 2" x 4" welded wire (14 gauge) for main fence then we have chicken wire running out away from the bottom to discourage the diggers. Since our raccoons don't come out much in the daytime we don't worry so much about if they should climb into the run since the chooks are locked in the coop for night time.

Our dogs keep most of the "critters" away during the daytime. I think their scent also keeps most of them away during the night, but occasionally we go out because of the growling or barking.

 

[Chicks4MamaJo]

It's good to know what you used for the fencing, we were going to use the 1/2 inch hardware cloth and then completely frame out the chicken run and top it with a tin roof to keep the rain/mud out a little. Since we get alot of random thunderstorms out here in the Carolinas... We had read about digging 12" down into the ground and burying the chicken wire in an "L" shape into the dirt to prevent any digging predators from getting in. So that is what we were going to do. We have two dogs as well, but of course being in an apartment they are not constantly out in the yard. We take them outside several times a day when we're home and they are really well trained so they go outside offleash. We actually have a wolf mix, his name is Koda and he's part wolf and part malamute. Then we have our chocolate lab, Cleo.

Question: If were both at work 8hrs a day, Do you think its safe to have the pop door open and allow the chickens to roam in the run when we're not at home to keep an eye on them?