How many chickens fit here?

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paeskie

paeskie

In the Brooder
8 Years
Mar 22, 2011
29
0
32
This is my chicken tractor. The run is 4x10 and the coop is about 3x4 with three nesting boxes and two roosting bars.
How many standard-size laying hens would be happy in here?

83433_img_5102.jpg
 
2-3 ?? I coop is the same size but my run is a little longer and I had 4 LF hens in mine at first. I think they were a bit crowded so now I have 2 and they have plenty of space.
 
That is just slightly larger than my original chicken tractor (4x7 with a 2.5 x 4 'house' on top). I would not have put more than my original 3 hens in mine; I suppose you could shoehorn in a fourth without too much extra likelihood of cannibalism (as long as they get along well) but three would be better IMHO. Especially if you live somewhere with "real winter".

E.t.a. - you might seriously consider removing all but one of the nestboxes, to give them more walking-around space in there, and remove one roost for same reason... all you need for 3-4 chickens is one nestbox and 3 linear feet of roost space. (Unless you really want to play 'how densely can I pack 'em in and not have anyone pecked bloody on a regular basis'.)

E.t.also.a - you might also consider replacing the chickenwire with something dogproof (chickenwire generally isn't) and make sure the 'house' portion has sufficient ventilation.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
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I'm thinking comfortably, three hens would be perfect. four would be pushing it.......Or if you got bantams, then you could probably have five.

Space is so important to chickens....They get too crowded, then they start pulling feathers and picking on eachother.......

Very cute chicken tractor!
 
I've a 4x8 run with 4x4 coop on it. We had 7 standard hens in it last fall through winter. They free ranged several hours a day and had run of the shoveled paths this winter. Sold 3 hens this spring and the girls are happier with the added room.

There would be some pecking of the runt of flock if they were not allowed out to range a few hours a day. Egg production wasn't effected and nothing serious like feather pulling.
 
I would think 5 bantams, 4 standard hens, or 3 large breed hens.

Will you integrate a larger run area or is the tractor portion it?

With your set up i would probably remove 2 of the nest boxes, add a door on the back, and create a large run area to supplement the chicken tractor and back the tractor into the run to give them more room at times. run = space while tractor = fresh grass.

I think my hens would get claustrophobic in the tractor space only.
 

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