Coop design for 100 chickens

[clacasse88]

My goal is to have 100 chickens. How should I design my coops? Build individual coops as I go? Should I start dozen by dozen and build coop for each one? Any good ideas. I am lucky as my husband is a carpenter and built one beautiful one for the dozen chickens now. I just ordered 2 dozen from hatchery due to come next month. I'm not sure if I should just build one big coop or individual ones in case anything (diseases, etc.) go through the coops.

If you have 100 or more chickens, I'd love to hear how you have the coops set up

 

[CARS]

I have my chickens in 9'x18' pens in a barn. Each one of those can be divided in half if the need arises. I keep about 25 in each pen.

Personally I think having separate coops scattered all over the yard would be alot of work. I like having all my stuff under one roof. (feed, water, electric, bedding, bales, birds)

Here's a picture of my "coop":

And the pens:

 

[CARS]

Off topic, but look close at the third picture

Hmmm, what's he up to???

 

[Manok-Tao]

Quote:
Is that a cat on top the nest box?

 

[Chook-A-Holic]

Looks like a rat to me.

 

[CARS]

Nope, it's Cuddles the cat.

Back to the coop!!

 

[patandchickens]

It depends totally on what kind of "100 chickens" you want. If you wanted a single flock, e.g. 100 layers to sell eggs from or a really large breeding flock (possibly subdivided) of a single breed, then my best suggestion is to look at OLD coop designs, like 1900-1930ish, when there were lots and lots of small commercial flocks of like 100 hens and the technology was pretty well worked out.

If you want to keep a bunch of breeds separate, though, you can subdivide a 100-hen coop up to a point, but if it's going to be a bunch of 3 or 10-chicken units (say), then you are probably going to have to look at other designs.

In general it is much more efficient to have a single building, save you time and money and labor and aggravation. I am not super convinced that the biosecurity thing is relevant to normal backyarders, unless you will routinely exercise excellent personal biosecurity when going from coop to coop (disinfect shoes and hands, change clothes, that sort of thing) -- but there *is* definitely advantage to having somewhere separate you can quarantine birds or isolate them if needed.

Really there are a lot of different 'best' designs, depending on what you want your flock(s) to be like and what you want to do with them.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[clacasse88]

CARS: Thanks for the pics. Unfortunately I don't have a barn. Bought small farm and all outbuildings were gone from yesteryear, including 2-3 lg. hen houses (seen from old photos).

I have to start from scratch!

PATANDCHICKENS: Thank you for your advice. I guess I have to really sit down & figure out what type of chickens I want. I do think that one lg. building would be a good idea.

Thanks everyone!

 

[jacktheknife]

clascesse88,

I have hatched '131 chickens' from a Rooster and 4 hens, in one pen.
Now for 'Rhode Island Reds' I am building separate breeder coops
for each of 4 Roosters with 5-6 hens each.
Same for my barnvelder Rooster and the Bantums.
A Rooster can handle as many as 10 hens
but 7 is pushing it, if you expect them to have a good hatch.
I like one Roster to 5-6 hens just to assure fertility.

I hear, if they are raised together,
100 chickens, {Rosters included}
will be fine and will not kill each other,
but I find different, they pull each others feathers out
and the Roosters kill each other ganging up on the little ones and it is terrible.
They'll pick the feathers out of each others backs
and when you take them out, and keep them separate to let the feathers grow back,
the others will not let them back into the coop.
Mean as heck chickens are and that is why I keep them in small groups.

Now that is the reason I raise Barnvelders!
Barnvelders are 'real nice' chickens and they could possible be raised in a 100 chicken herd.
Rhode Island Reds, on the other hand, are almighty viscous.

This is a picture of my 'Show Coop' it was designed for 24 hens and 4 Roosters.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/7779/dscn09031.jpg
http://img90.imageshack.us/i/01212.jpg/
http://img5.imageshack.us/i/dscn09031.jpg/



Thank you...


J. Winters von Knife

 

[CARS]

Quote:
You asked what it would take for a 100 chickens. I have 50 to 75 depending on the time of the year. If you don't want to build 20 coops, you're going to need a big building.
Build a 500 square foot building (25x25) and divide it out to suit your needs. Then add runs.

100 chickens takes space

I'd put them in as small of a foot print as I could. No need to fill 40 waterers with a hydrant (faucet) 200 yards away

After reading your reply (as quoted) I would replicate one of the old hen houses. Can you scan (or take a new photo of the old one) the picture and post it for us???