4 square feet per chicken?

[Jennsbirds]

On here: 10sqft per chicken, but that quickly results in a bare run completely devoid of plants and insect life. I use twice that as a minimum to allow grass to grow.

Just for grass?

 

[TheCrazyChick]

Don't panic. There really is no set rule. It's whatever works best for your situation. Yes, 4 sf in the coop or more is optimal, but 2 or 3 is just fine, too, depending on other factors. For your 9 birds (I have NO duck experience), between 18 and 36 sf in the coop is suggested. Depends on size of run and if you plan on free ranging or using a tractor at all. I've read anywhere between 5 and 10 sf in the run per bird. So your situation would be between 45 and 90 sf.

I have 7 birds in a 22 sf coop. They are fine with that space even though it's been cold outside and the run isn't up yet. They have 22 sf of run under the coop at the moment. I am adding 3 grown birds more this weekend and am confident there will be no problems. In a month we'll have a 12 x 5 run erected in addition to the run underneath and yes, they will be happier, but for now they are perfectly fine.

I personally would not worry about grass growing, or not growing, in your run. Just place some sod in there on occasion or grow your own fodder. It's easy, cheap, and a nice way to get some green stuff into them. And don't forget a dust bath for them.

I'll probably get yelled at for giving you this "don't worry about it" advice, but I'm a no-nonsense kinda gal and while I love my chickens, I do not coddle them much. Except for making them warm oatmeal every morning, and making homemade treats, and .. well, okay, so I coddle a little.

On the other hand, if your plans were to give them 4 sf TOTAL for coop AND run, then yes, you are totally wrong. Not enough space. They will drive each other and YOU crazy. May even lose a few to fights, etc.

Hope it all works out for you! This is a great forum to find your answers.

 

[BGMatt]

It depends on size of bird too. My old breeding pens from when I was a teenager (and I hatched year round so most my flock lived in these pens) were 4'x8' so 32 sqft, the most I would allow running in a pen was 6 large fowl Sumatras (which is one of the smallest large fowl) but my Langshans and Jersey Giants would be 2-3 birds per pen, while my OEG bantam's were up to 10 in a pen. When the pens started filling up I had to deep clean every other week or they would just get nasty. More recently I went to much more sqft per bird (though never quite hitting the 14 combined sqft that the forum recommends, think more like a trio of the larger breeds in an 8'x8' or 8'x12', my new pens will be even larger) and both myself and my birds were much happier with the arrangement.

Basically like other's have said theres no hard and fast rule but the less sqft you allow per bird the more cleaning and upkeep you'll have to do to keep your birds happy and healthy.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, there are no magic numbers concerning this. We keep chickens in such different climates, in totally different conditions, for different goals, with different flock make-ups, some bantam and some full sized, some with broodies raising chicks, some where we integrate a lot of new various-aged chickens, and using different management techniques. How could one magic number cover all this?

The 4 and 10 is a rule of thumb that will keep most people out of trouble most of the time. For many people it is overkill. For some of us, it can get pretty tight. It’s more of a guideline to give people without experience a fairly safe place to start. And it is set up more for someone with a fairly small flock in an urban backyard. If you have a larger flock or your neighbors are not as close, you probably don’t need as much space per chicken.

How you manage them is very important. If they are locked in the coop a lot during their waking hours, the coop should be bigger. If they have pretty reliable access to other space when they are awake, you really don’t need a lot of room in the coop itself. Coop space by itself is fairly irrelevant. It’s total available space that counts along with it actually being available.

I’m a proponent of providing as much space as you realistically can. I find with extra space I don’t have as many behavioral problems, I don’t have to work as hard, and I have more flexibility in dealing with problems.

It depends on how many you have, the space available, and your climate, but don’t expect anything to grow in your run. They will eat practically anything green then scratch out the roots and eat those too.

 

[popsicle]

I think in general if the birds are enclosed in a run, nothing will grow--even if it's incredibly generous. (of course this doesn't count if the run is ginormous)

I have a 66 sq ft coop and a 144 sq ft run for 8 hens--that's 18 sq.ft / bird in the run, and 8.25 sq.ft / bird inside the coop. NOTHING is growing in the run, AND my birds get some free range time (though not daily--don't want them ripping up my steep slopes too much, which seems to be their favorite dust bathing area since they are south facing).

 

[TheCrazyChick]

Yeah, there are no magic numbers concerning this. We keep chickens in such different climates, in totally different conditions, for different goals, with different flock make-ups, some bantam and some full sized, some with broodies raising chicks, some where we integrate a lot of new various-aged chickens, and using different management techniques. How could one magic number cover all this?

The 4 and 10 is a rule of thumb that will keep most people out of trouble most of the time. For many people it is overkill. For some of us, it can get pretty tight. It’s more of a guideline to give people without experience a fairly safe place to start. And it is set up more for someone with a fairly small flock in an urban backyard. If you have a larger flock or your neighbors are not as close, you probably don’t need as much space per chicken.

How you manage them is very important. If they are locked in the coop a lot during their waking hours, the coop should be bigger. If they have pretty reliable access to other space when they are awake, you really don’t need a lot of room in the coop itself. Coop space by itself is fairly irrelevant. It’s total available space that counts along with it actually being available.

I’m a proponent of providing as much space as you realistically can. I find with extra space I don’t have as many behavioral problems, I don’t have to work as hard, and I have more flexibility in dealing with problems.

It depends on how many you have, the space available, and your climate, but don’t expect anything to grow in your run. They will eat practically anything green then scratch out the roots and eat those too.

Thank you Ridgerunner for those words of wisdom. There definitely needs to be some flexibility involved with these numbers on a case-by-case basis. Drives me crazy when I see someone on the forum ripping someone a new one for simply saying they will have 3 sf per bird. Common sense should dictate. I'm just afraid newbies may pull their own hair out trying to figure out the EXACT space they need, when there really is no EXACT space they need.

Can you tell it's a Friday? Okay, I feel better now.

 

[Time-Out]

I think in general if the birds are enclosed in a run, nothing will grow--even if it's incredibly generous. (of course this doesn't count if the run is ginormous)

Thank goodness this isn't the case or the landlady would boot us out lol. I have a few in my backgarden and the garden is fine. I've just had to put borders around the flowerbeds to stop them kicking the soil all over the lawn and we now grow the strawberries out of reach, but the garden is otherwise great. Hey, even my crocusses have started popping up! Spring is nearly here

(The backgarden is about 5m x 20m including the patio - I dream of a nice big garden and a dog)

 

[popsicle]

Thank goodness this isn't the case or the landlady would boot us out lol. I have a few in my backgarden and the garden is fine. I've just had to put borders around the flowerbeds to stop them kicking the soil all over the lawn and we now grow the strawberries out of reach, but the garden is otherwise great. Hey, even my crocusses have started popping up! Spring is nearly here

(The backgarden is about 5m x 20m including the patio - I dream of a nice big garden and a dog)

100 square meters is > 1,000 square feet. By the 10-sq-feet-per-bird-in-a-run rule that should be enough for 100 chickens. How many chickens do you have out there?

 

[Time-Out]

I said I don't go by the 10sqft rule, because I like to allow grass to grow?

ETA: I guess it would depend on your climate. Grass doesn't grow everywhere. We had a particularly wet year last year and it's suffered a lot. Fingers crossed this year is better!

 

[popsicle]

I said I don't go by the 10sqft rule, because I like to allow grass to grow?

Earlier quote: Thank goodness this isn't the case or the landlady would boot us out lol.

Sorry, I thought you meant that my comment was incorrect rather than that's not the rule you follow.