Coop math vs. chicken math

[n3kms]

I was on here 4 years ago, asking questions and designing my coop. The building of it was going to be more of an undertaking than we could manage at the time. But..I wanted it the way I wanted it and I would rather wait than go with something less. Well, we are finally building our coop. I have 10 Barred Rock chicks coming from My Pet Chicken in a couple of weeks. Got the brooder in the garage ready to go.
I am coming to understand "chicken math" because I am already checking out getting some blue egg laying chicks. What I need to be sure I understand is coop math. My chickens will have a large run and I hope to let them free range outside of that when I can watch them. We have a lot of hawks around here. But at times they will be cooped up due to weather or if we are away overnight.
If I have a coop that is 10 ft X 10 ft then that is 100 square feet. One hundred square feet divided by 4 sq. ft. per chicken would be 25 chickens. Am I figuring that correctly? I have gotten confusing info from some post that I have read so I want to make sure I understand the math. I probably won't be getting 25 chickens but you never know.

Thanks,

Lori

 

[cafarmgirl]

Yes, technically a 10x10 coop should house 25 chickens. Technically, and if all goes well. I personally do not like the tight quarters that these minimum space requirements result in and I always either go a lot larger or have less birds in the space available. I have found it's far, far easier to avoid problems then to solve them!

Of even more importance is how much area you have in your run since that is where they will want to be most of the time. The minimum requirements for the run call for 10 sf per bird so you'd need about 250 sf in the run. For 25 birds that seems awfully small to me but that's what the "books" say!

The bottom line is, the more space you can provide per bird the more comfortable, less stressed and better off they will be.

 

[n3kms]

The run will be around 300 square feet and I will probably not have twenty-five adult birds at any given time but I really did want to make sure they were not over crowded. Do you think 15 would be okay in a 10x10 coop if they had to stay in for a day?

Thanks for your help.