another 'how big should my coop be' question

[Rorie]

As above, how big should my coop be for bantam orps? I keep seeing '4 sq ft per bird' but that seems crazy! Ours have almost free range, so this is just for night. The coop is what i would call pretty big, 7 sq ft. Our 5 hens and one cock all huddle on one perch but sometimes overflow to the second (there are three)

We got a couple more hens (bantam orp size) today and finally the coop is looking a bit fuller.... but if the '4 sq ft per bird' thing is right, we can technically only fit one bird in there!!

Am i missing something?! Is 4 sq ft for large foul? I thouht hens loved to cuddle in small areas at night.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I wrote this for another question but it gives my thoughts on space. Maybe you can get something out of it.

I don’t believe in magic numbers for much of anything to do with chickens. We keep them in so many different circumstances, in so many different climates, with all kinds of different flock make-ups, different chickens handle confinement better than others or just have different personalities, and we manage them so differently that no one number can cover everyone rom Duluth to Miami, Denver to El Paso, Perth to Inverness, small urban backyard to wide open country living. January or July might make a difference too.

The 4 square feet in the coop with 10 in the run per chickens is a rule of thumb pointed more to someone keeping a few hens in an urban backyard. Most of the rules of thumb on BYC are pointed that way. When you get into a lot of chickens those rules kind of break down. They will keep practically anybody out of trouble in most situations but some of them can be overkill. They are OK as a starting point when you don’t have any experience to fall back on. Everyone has to start somewhere.

This is going to be a long post anyway so I’ll take the time to explain what I mean by the numbers breaking down. This could apply to a lot of the magic numbers you get on BYC but let’s look at space. Say you have 4 chickens and you give each one of them 4 square feet for a total of 16 square feet. If each chicken physically takes up 1 square foot, then you have 4 square feet occupied by chickens with 12 square feet unoccupied for them to explore. If instead you have 40 chickens, each with 4 square feet or 160 square feet total available. The have 120 square feet available for exploration. That’s part of the reason that a commercial egg producer can keep 5000 laying hens with only 2 square feet each, though they still have to trim beaks so they don’t eat each other.

Don’t get too hung up on coop space versus run space. Space is space. It doesn’t matter if it is in a coop, coop and run, or if they free range and sleep in trees. If space is available when they are awake, it doesn’t matter where it is.

I’m an advocate of providing as much space as you reasonably can. In my opinion, there are three reasons to provide adequate space. I find there are fewer behavioral problems if they are not crowded. Behavioral problems could be feather-picking, fighting, all the way to cannibalism.

Chickens have developed ways to live together in a flock. One important way is in case of conflict, the weaker runs away from the stronger or just avoids then in the first place. If they run away, a chase may be involved to drive the message home. They need enough room to get away if they need to or avoid to start with.

I find I have to work less if they are not overly crowded. Poop management is a good example. Chickens poop a lot. If they are packed in tight it builds up. The more it builds up the more effort you have to spend in managing it and the less control you have over that schedule. I’m a firm believer that the less often you have to muck out the entire coop the better.

The other thing about space is the tighter you pack them the less flexibility you have in managing a problem. Say you pack them in tight then have a predator problem in your run. Can you leave them locked safely in the coop while you handle that problem? Maybe you really need to be somewhere else for a few hours instead of home rebuilding a fence. If you free range them and one hides a nest, one way to handle that is to lock the flock in the coop and run or maybe just coop until she lays her egg, maybe for a week or more, until she learns where she really should be laying that egg. If you ever want a broody to raise chicks with the flock or ever want to integrate new chickens, the more room you have the easier that is. Go back to the room to run away or avoid thing above.

How you manage them is really important. If you just use a coop only as a safe place for them to spend the night and maybe lay an egg, you really don’t need much coop space. Two square feet per bird would be plenty, but if you commit to something like this, you commit to letting them out every day of the year at daybreak, when they wake up. You don’t sleep in on a Saturday morning, even if you have the flu. If you take a vacation you need to have someone you can rely on to open it at daybreak. I have a college girl that takes care of mine when I go see my granddaughter. If she had to be there at the break of dawn, I’d probably be looking for someone else to take care of them. I have enough space so that is not a problem.

How many days will you have that your run space is not available, maybe due to weather? My chickens don’t mind cold weather. They go out in zero degrees weather. That’s as cold as it normally gets here or they’d probably go out in colder weather. But they do not like a cold wind. If a cold wind is blowing they find shelter. You might want to provide some type of wind break near your coop. It doesn’t take much, just a protected corner so they can get out of the coop if they want to. Having two separate spaces, in the coop and in the run, really helps in that avoid thing.

Mine generally don’t like snow at all when they first see it. They generally don’t like anything strange and new. But after a couple of days most of mine will go for a stroll in snow. Most, not necessarily all. A few years back a couple of mine waded through 9” of snow to go check out my compost pile. When you are looking at a wind break, you might consider that snow can blow in from the side through a fence. Just something to consider. My protected area is a corner made by the coop and a solid gate. If a cold wind is blowing they are often crowded in there. My coop is big enough for the number of chickens I have in the winter that they can stay in the coop itself if they need to.

 

[loveourbirds]

As above, how big should my coop be for bantam orps? I keep seeing '4 sq ft per bird' but that seems crazy! Ours have almost free range, so this is just for night. The coop is what i would call pretty big, 7 sq ft. Our 5 hens and one cock all huddle on one perch but sometimes overflow to the second (there are three)

We got a couple more hens (bantam orp size) today and finally the coop is looking a bit fuller.... but if the '4 sq ft per bird' thing is right, we can technically only fit one bird in there!!

Am i missing something?! Is 4 sq ft for large foul? I thouht hens loved to cuddle in small areas at night.

yes, it is 4 sq ft for large fowl, with bantams i still figure about the same but you don't have to. letting them free range they get a lot more exercise. i am scratching my head trying to figure out how you get a 7 sq ft coop. is it 2 feet by 3 1/2 feet?