Chicken Math is real. 0 to 10 in 72 hrs.

[triciayoung]

If you already have the smaller coop, don't despair. They are useful as brooders, hospitals, and just as extra shelter in the run.

Agreed, that is what I use them for as well.

 

[triciayoung]

The coop is being delivered to TSC for pickup in a few days, but I wanted to build one myself anyway, so they'll probably have a second coop by summer.

By my calculations, even with the single coop I'll have 9' of roosting bars and ~13-14 sq ft of interior space in the coop counting the nest boxes. So everyone would have a minimum of 9" of roost space (since you can't split a chicken across 3 roost bars) and about a square foot of coop space for now.
I do plan on giving them some "free range" time by giving them a daytime run or tractor that's larger than the more secure night time "run" that I purchased.

I had used

from Carolina Coops to sanity check my calcs and what they said about needing less coop space if you free range or have a larger run makes a lot of sense to me.

The reason you need space in your coop, the premanufactured coop sellers ignore. You need to think about it as this...if you have inclement weather or some other "Act of God" situations - which we all have at least once or twice per year, can your chickens spend all day or days in their coop? Can you sit in there with them? Can you stand up and clean it? Can you put food and water in there and they can still walk around with plenty of space? Can they walk around without being in poop all day?

 

[ATXInstantFlock]

I'm glad it worked out. Have you dropped in on the Texas thread yet?

No, not yet, but I will! Still finding my way around here.

 

[janiedoe]

No, not yet, but I will! Still finding my way around here.

I'll tag you over there.

 

[rural mouse]

Welcome to chicken math. And BTW, none of the chicks are barred rocks....

This is one. All barred birds have the light spot on their head. The spot can be hard to see in lighter colored down, but it's there none the less.

The chipmunk striped is a very common chick color, so figuring out what they are will likely take a while.

 

[NatJ]

Welcome to chicken math. And BTW, none of the chicks are barred rocks....

Good point! I hadn't thought to look carefully at the chicks to double-check the breed identifications, but now that you mention it, I agree that there are no Barred Rocks in the pictures.

 

[ATXInstantFlock]

Welcome to chicken math. And BTW, none of the chicks are barred rocks....

Saw this a while back and forgot to reply. Well shoot. We hadn't named those two and have no idea what to call them yet. We've just been calling them small barred rock and large barred rock.

 

[ATXInstantFlock]

It's been a busy few weeks with the eldest junior chicken keeper's birthday, so an update was overdue.

(Wed May 1st - Day 13) Last picture of "the big kids" before they moved to a new home. This brooder is getting crowded!

Time to haul everything home from Tractor Supply:

Unpacked the "run" that will eventually form the skeleton to the coop, and Nico needs to mark his territory.

(Thu May 2nd - Day 14) Got the Snap lock put together in the garage and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. It went together fairly well and I only had trouble getting one tab to slide in. 2 min with a razor blade to shave some injection molding seam material and that was sorted.

I've lived in the same place for about 25 years and have never seen a chicken coop. Well look who's driving down the highway, right in front of me.

(May 3rd Day 15) Got the girls moved into the "Garage Mahal". Basically just unclipped the roof from the snap lock. They now have roughly 1.5x the combined square footage of before, plus more places to play and more headroom.

All 10 have begun getting feathers with the two oldest having feathers everywhere except their head and neck.

There doesn't seem to be much bullying, but the 6 little kids from the second brooder tote seem to be sticking together in a little cluster. The 4 bigger kids, tend to cluster together, but have certainly showed some signs of feeling free to roam everywhere. In the last 24 hours or so, some of them are crawling into the nesting boxes..not sure if we should just block those off or fill them with pine shavings.

I'm mildly concerned that the big kids are resource guarding so we've talked about rearranging the food/water in a cross cross pattern. I was originally using those straps to help support water feeders to avoid tipping. Perhaps now that there are two roosting bars they will be less likely to want to stand on their feeders.
Been raining all week, but I hope to get the run setup in the next week.

 

[Debbie292d]

It's been a busy few weeks with the eldest junior chicken keeper's birthday, so an update was overdue.

(Wed May 1st - Day 13) Last picture of "the big kids" before they moved to a new home. This brooder is getting crowded!

View attachment 3822199

Time to haul everything home from Tractor Supply:
View attachment 3822200

Unpacked the "run" that will eventually form the skeleton to the coop, and Nico needs to mark his territory.
View attachment 3822201

(Thu May 2nd - Day 14) Got the Snap lock put together in the garage and I have to say I'm pretty impressed. It went together fairly well and I only had trouble getting one tab to slide in. 2 min with a razor blade to shave some injection molding seam material and that was sorted.
View attachment 3822203

I've lived in the same place for about 25 years and have never seen a chicken coop. Well look who's driving down the highway, right in front of me.

View attachment 3822206

(May 3rd Day 15) Got the girls moved into the "Garage Mahal". Basically just unclipped the roof from the snap lock. They now have roughly 1.5x the combined square footage of before, plus more places to play and more headroom.
View attachment 3822215

All 10 have begun getting feathers with the two oldest having feathers everywhere except their head and neck.

There doesn't seem to be much bullying, but the 6 little kids from the second brooder tote seem to be sticking together in a little cluster. The 4 bigger kids, tend to cluster together, but have certainly showed some signs of feeling free to roam everywhere. In the last 24 hours or so, some of them are crawling into the nesting boxes..not sure if we should just block those off or fill them with pine shavings.

I'm mildly concerned that the big kids are resource guarding so we've talked about rearranging the food/water in a cross cross pattern. I was originally using those straps to help support water feeders to avoid tipping. Perhaps now that there are two roosting bars they will be less likely to want to stand on their feeders.
Been raining all week, but I hope to get the run setup in the next week.

This sounds like you really have things going well. I busted out laughing when I saw Nico. We have fields beside us and for some unknown reason, these two don't poop in our yard. That's a bonus to the farmers I guess lol.

If you could design a way to hang those feeders and waterers even an inch off the bottom, that would keep them way cleaner and less stepped in.

The other idea for water I love is those vertical nipple bottles. When they get yours age, we convert them to horizontal ones. All of our waterers in the main coop and 3 temp pens are nipple bottles/buckets. We got the nipples from Amazon and there are oodles of sellers of them.

Here's one we made for intermediates and an example of the water bottle in from one of our cardboard box brooders we used to have.

 

[RoyalChick]

Welcome to BYC - your story made me smile.
This is a great place to ask questions and share stories - we have all been got by chicken math at some stage. My last additions were supposed to be a pair, and somehow are in fact 5. I am a bit hazy on how that happened!
I suggest you start building a bigger coop and run now because I am pretty sure you won't settle for 8!
Settle in and enjoy the community.