coop & run size/ material questions...

[sattoritx]

Forgive my ignorance please..... still learning
My mom bought my kids 8 chicks for Easter (2 Americaunas, 2 gold lace wyendotte, 2 gold sexlink, 2 brown sexlink)
I was only planning on 4, but my moms friend who lets her flock free range on her farm. Has a 50/50 survival rate from chick to hen, so my mom got me twice as many although we plan on building a pen.
I was planning on the 4sq ft per hen inside coop but have seen some sites say 2sq ft, ACK! is that ridiculously small?
When figuring the sq footage is it floor area only? What if you have a 4ft tall coop with lots of perches?
Also what is the run sq footage per bird suggested?

....and if your not supposed to use cedar bedding why can you use cedar for constructing? Can you use pressure treated wood?

Still in the design phase but eager to get started so the chicks can use the run during the day when we have nice weather. So thankful my hubbie is a contractor and gets lots of scraps.

 

[AnnesChicks]

Congrats on your new little flock. Take a look at my page for ideas on coop/run design for eight! We repurposed a lot of it, although it isn't as fancy as some of the beautiful chicken palaces on here, the total cost was about $350. We've had our eight hens for over a year now and our set up is working well for them.

My DH looked through all the coop examples on this website to come up with his design. As to your question about cedar shavings, the cedar smell irritates their respitory system. I buy the white pine shavings at the feed store, a giant compressed bale costs about $8 and will last a long time.

 

[LittleMamaBigPapa]

Hi.

We started with 3 chicks, and built our coop 4x4 (thinking 4 sf per bird) NOT AT ALL BIG ENOUGH!! My rooster hogs up at least 1/3 of that floor space. We are going to build another coop soon, and we are doubling the floor space and decreasing the height. Heat rises, so we want to make the roof a bit lower. The run "should be" 10 sf. per bird and ours is slightly bigger at 4 ft x 12 ft.

Please, check out my page, and ALL the other coops. I started out going to the coop pages that were in the size I wanted (Medium) and then starting make notes upon notes of features I liked and then told my hubby, and he designed ours based on the features. SIZE is the only thing I would change. You can always add ply walls to make smaller.....you cant make it bigger quite as easily.

HAVE FUN!!!!

 

[midget_farms]

My first coop was (is) 4 x 6. I've had as many as 10 birds in there w/o problems. They spend most of their time outside anyway & being a little tight at night doesn't bother them. You have to be careful in the winter though - when they don't come out of the coop for weeks if it snows. They can pick at each other.

I'm currently building an 8 x 10 because I'm moving up to 20 birds. Needed more space.

 

[Dogfish]

Cedar shavings get into their water and leach oils that are harmful. Cedar shingle siding has no effect on them. PT wood is fine.

So did you mom buy the kids teh chicks without consulting you? If she did, have her pick up half the wood bill.

 

[Backyard_Chicken_rancher]

Finaly someone has came here to learn from us getting the Easter chicks I'm so proud of you I hate it when people go and bu the chicks and ducklings and have no idea about takeing care of it, you on the other hand have congratz to you.

 

[sattoritx]

Quote:
Thanks for the material answer =-) My mom was going to let me be surprised too, thank god my brother let it slip.
My initial response was "ah no" but after researching it more I became OK with 4 now I'm looking at 8 (each kid has 2)
and I became worried when the kids started naming them, I rent a house so the coop also needs to be moveable, since we plan to buy soon.
I had my mom agree to pay feed and bedding for 6 months (think i will try to stock up some) and she is also paying for the hardware cloth.
Not a bad deal most of the lumber will be scraps since my husband does all sorts of contracting jobs.

I feel like I have ate, drank and slept chicken info for the last 2 weeks, dont know how I didnt make it to this board sooner, you guys are wonderful.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

PS Any Roosters will not be staying.. my neighbor has a bunch so he may get them, lol

 

[sattoritx]

Quote:
Perfect!! your page is eggs-actly what i needed, to see for an eggs-ample, lol and your mutts are the prettiest

A modified dog run what a brilliant Idea, I noticed you didnt originally have a top over your run.
do you need to clip flight feathers or can they not fly that high?

 

[AnnesChicks]

We live in a rural area, lots of hawks, racoons and other things that go bump in the night -even bears in the neighborhood from time to time. Our yard is not fully fenced so we needed a secure. So to cover the top we used old welded wire fencing, zip tied to the top of the dog run to hold it securely in place. This winter we added PVC pipe arched underneath the wire and also zip tied into place, we added a tarp and it has worked beautifully through a very stormy, windy winter. We do let them free range when we are outside in a corner of the yard that is fully blocked off. I have taught them to come into the coop when I call them with "treats" as an incentive so that I can put them away, or at dark they put themselves to bed.

If you have craigslist in your area that is the best place to pick up used materials, including dog runs for not a lot of money.