5 Chicken Coop + Run, Recommended Dimensions?

[Mother of Chaos]

I have an 8x15 aviary-type run with a Nestera coop perched on a 3’ high platform, 5 girls, and truly no expectations of flock expansion (adding more chickens) once I saw how much forage area is needed for them to thrive.

We are “yard-rangers”, as contrasted with free-rangers, and they spend essentially all daylight hours out of the run, except on days with terrible weather. This makes a difference when figuring how much space you need.

Other than occasional social-hierarchy pecks, we have a very peaceful flock, even though the coop is not quite 3x3, and the run is currently 24 sq ft per bird. It would be very, very different in a very, very bad way if they were penned all day in the run.

So access to more open areas, while still being able to go in the run and coop during the day, affects the math.

If there is no realistic option of letting them out during the day, do maximize the run space. You have no idea how wonderful it is to have a peaceful flock until you actually have one.

And until you experience chicken math, you have no idea of how powerful it is in overturning carefully-thought-out plans.

 

[NatJ]

Looking at my back yard schematics I planned for an 8x16 spot.

Could I use corrugated metal? Also, I wound up with a free rain barrel, but I have no gutters on my house. Would it be silly to roof over the run as well (maximizing square footage) and add gutters to collect rain to water my plants with from the coop?

Another option is to make an open air coop:
Make a covered run that fills the entire space. (Wire mesh on the sides, solid roof on the top.)
Put roosts at one end for sleeping, with partial walls of solid material to provide shelter from wind.
Put nests somewhere that rain will not blow in them either (probably the same sheltered area.)

That gives your chickens one big space, rather than dividing it into a coop and a separate run (with each one being smaller than the whole space.)

That idea is often called an "open air coop." In hot climates, it is very helpful to have most of the walls made of wire mesh instead of solid material. If you get wind in the winter, you can cover some walls with tarp to provide more shelter. That may or may not be needed, depending on how many other features of your property will already block wind. (Example: your house is a great big wind block, but may not be in the right place to shelter the coop.)

For this to work well, that covered run does need to be predator-proof. That generally means hardware cloth with 1/2" holes rather than flimsy chicken wire, and an "apron" of hardware cloth around the outside of the run to keep predators from digging under the fence. Watch out for gaps where the roof meets the sides, and around the doors.

Two examples of articles with pictures of open air coops:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/simple-open-air-coop.67987/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/open-air-coops.48177/