Building my first coop

[99TJ]

Well owned some chickens years ago but gave them to a friend. So now we want more chickens and want a good coop. So we are starting with a 4x8 coop with a run of 14 x 16 lots of space.

Will try and figure out how to get pictures on here but had a couple questoins. One was what size nesting boxes, also now many chickens should I shoot with this size coop.

Thanks for all the info you all can supply, the site has been a load of information so far.

Gary

 

[99TJ]

 

[Paraclete]

I think 1'x1'x1' is what you'll get from most people about the size of the nesting box, I have mine 1'x1'x like 16" sloping down to 13" just for looks.
And from what I've read on here, it's 4 square feet per bird, I guess so they can spread their wings and do circles without hitting another bird doing the same thing.

But yeah, most will say 4 square feet for a single bird.

 

[elmo]

Rather than think about how many chickens you could possibly fit in the coop, why not think about it in terms of how many eggs you would like to have? Three chickens can give you as many as 18 eggs a week when they're in full production, and 3 chickens in a set up like you're planning would be ridiculously easy to care for.

Many people use the 4 square feet per bird/indoors plus 10 square feet per bird/outdoors as a rule of thumb for the ideal stocking density, but I think it's more a rule of thumb for a minimum that you probably shouldn't go below. You and your birds will certainly be a lot happier with more room. The lower the stocking density in a given space, the easier the chicken keeper's job will be.