Designing Chicken Coop for 8-10 Hens

[wab11287]

Being an old drafter I love to see drawings/plans/layouts!!
Are you planning to build this year or next spring?

I will be building and getting the chicks for next spring. I wanted to have all the plans and materials prepared over the winter so I won't be scrambling at the end.

 

[aart]

I will be building and getting the chicks for next spring. I wanted to have all the plans and materials prepared over the winter so I won't be scrambling at the end.

Good to take much time planning, reading here, adjusting your plan and make all your mistakes on paper rather than in lumber.

 

[wab11287]

Here is a design draft of the coop layout.

Both the water system and feeder system will be made out of a PVC pipe self feeding set-up. The water will have poultry nipples attached and the feed will be in a trough style.

The nesting box will open with a flip down panel instead of the roof raising up. I want to do this for the reasons of not having to worry about water getting in and having a 6 year old daughter to will always want to help get eggs.

On the right side it will have a large swing door to access all of the coop and also a full width clean out door that is flush will the floor to make for easy cleaning.

The floor will also have a layer of linoleum on it.

 

[ronott1]

If you still cannot get to that article go to the "articles" tab at the top of this page and "search articles". Put in my user name and part of the title. Or read it below.

I don’t believe in magic numbers for chickens. We keep them in so many different conditions, in different climates, with different flock make-ups, use so many different management techniques, and have different goals so no one magic number will cover us all. Summer in Miami may be different from winter in Nova Scotia, for example. I find that the tighter I crowd them the more behavioural problems I am likely to have, the less flexibility I have in dealing with problems, and the harder I have to work.

The behavioral problems from overcrowding could be anywhere from them being loud, feather-picking, bullying, fighting, all the way to cannibalism. Flexibility is not just dealing with behavioral problems but maybe integration and broody hens, predator problems or many other things. As an extreme example, say you have damage to your run where you cannot safely keep your chickens penned during the day. Do you have to miss a day’s work or not take your kids to school to deal with it immediately or can you lock them in the coop until you have time to deal with it on your schedule? As for hard work, think poop management. The smaller space they are in the more you have to physically manage the poop.

What is important is how much space is available when they need it. Whether that space in in your coop, coop and run, or they sleep in trees and totally free range doesn’t matter. If all you use your coop for is to provide a safe place for them to sleep and you commit to getting up when they do 365 days a year so you can open the pop door, you really don’t need much space in the coop itself. The space available is the coop plus the run or maybe free range. But the more you commit yourself to a specific way of managing them, the less flexibility you have. For instance, how hard will it be to find someone to take care of your chickens when you go on vacation if they have to be there at dawn as opposed to 9:00 a.m. being OK?


I understand that people without experience need general guidelines to go by. There are several rules of thumb to help people get started. A popular one on this forum is 4 square feet per chicken in the coop along with 10 square feet per chicken in the run. This is geared toward people with a small backyard flock in suburbia, not a big flock in a rural setting. It will keep most people out of trouble in a wide range of climates and using different management techniques. That means it is overkill for a lot of people as far as the bare absolute minimum they could get by with, but occasionally it proves to be a bit tight. Still it is a good starting point.

Some of the things that make up the space requirement are, in my opinion:

1. Personal space for the birds. They have different personalities and different individual requirements. Some are very possessive of personal space and some can share. Each flock has its own dynamics. There are breed tendencies but individual birds of the same breed can have totally different personalities.

2. Access to feeder and waterer.

3. Being able to put the feeder and waterer where they will not poop in it when they roost.

4. Roost spacing. They not only need to have enough room to sleep on the roost, they need to have enough room for them to spread their wings and fly to the roost and to sort out who gets to sleep next to whom and who gets the prime spots once they get on the roost. When they get on, they may jump from some midway support or fly directly to the roost, but either way, they like to spread their wings. And some chickens seem to enjoy blocking the entry points if there are limits. When they get off, mine tend to want to fly down, not jump to a halfway point. They need room to fly down without bumping into feeders, waterers, nesting boxes, or a wall.

The more chickens you have the less roost space per chicken you need. They don’t take up a lot of room when they are roosting once access and maneuvering room is provided. But I find that mine can be pretty vicious on the roosts as they are settling down, especially when I am integrating. I find it helps to have lots of roost space, not the bare minimum.

5. Poop load. The larger area they have the less often you have to actively manage the poop. They poop a lot while on the roost so you may have to give that area special consideration, but mucking out the entire coop can be backbreaking work plus you have to have some place to put all that bedding and poop. In my opinion, totally cleaning out the coop is something that needs to happen as seldom as possible.

You can help manage poop load by using a droppings board but that commits you to regularly scraping the poop off and dealing with it.

6. How often are they able to get out of the coop? How often they are allowed out of the coop may depend on a lot more than just weather. Your work schedule, when you are able to turn them loose, what time of day you open the pop door to let them out or lock them up at night, all this and more enters into the equation. The 4 square feet recommendation assumes they will spend extended time in the coop and not be able to get in the run occasionally. What that extended time can safely be depends on a lot of different factor so there is no one correct length of time for everyone.

7. Do you feed and water in the coop or outside. The more they are outside, the less pressure on the size of the coop.

8. The size of the chicken. Bantams require less room than full sized chickens. This has to be tempered by breed and the individual personalities. Some bantams can be more protective of personal space than others, but this is also true of full sized breeds. Young chicks need less space than mature adults but in a mixed age flock, extra room is important.

9. The breed of the chicken. Some handle confinement better than others.

10. The number of chickens. The greater the number of chickens, the more personal space they can have if the square foot per chicken stays constant. Let me explain. Assume each chicken occupies 1 square foot of space. If you have two chickens and 4 square feet per chicken, the two chickens occupy 2 square feet, which leaves 6 square feet for them to explore. If you have ten chickens with 4 square feet per chicken, each chicken has 30 unoccupied square feet to explore. A greater number also can give more space to position the feeders and waterers properly in relation to the roosts and provide access. In general the more chickens you have the less space per chicken you need.

11. What is your flock make-up? Adding one rooster to a flock of hens does not greatly increase the required space needed, though it sometimes helps flock dynamics if they have more space. But adding a second or additional roosters can greatly affect the amount of room they need. Often multiple roosters will split the flock into separate harems with each rooster claiming his own territory. That reduces conflict.

12. What is the maximum number of chickens you will have. Consider hatching chicks or bringing in replacements. Look down the road a bit.

13. Do you want a broody to raise chicks with the flock? A broody needs sufficient room to work with.

14. The more space you have, the easier it is to integrate chickens. Chickens have developed a way to live together in a flock. It’s called the pecking order. But establishing that pecking order can sometimes be pretty violent. One method they use to take most of the danger out of establishing the pecking order is that the weaker runs away from the stronger when there is a confrontation or they just avoid the stronger to start with. They need room to run away and avoid.

15. The more space you have the more flexibility you have dealing with problems or altering your management techniques. That’s just basic.

I'm sure I am missing several components, but the point I'm trying to make is that we all have different conditions. There is no magic number that suits us all. I generally cringe when I see a post asking “How many chickens can I shoehorn into this size space?” I think the better way to look at it is to first decide how many chickens you want, then ask “How can I provide sufficient space?”

Some people consider giving chickens extra space to be coddling the chickens. Let’s examine that. If I give them extra space I have to deal with fewer behavior problems, I have more flexibility in managing them or in dealing with problems that come up, and I don’t have to work as hard. Is that coddling the chickens or is that not going out of my way to make my life harder than it has to be?

To me some of the key components for you are your location, they will be stuck in the coop reasonable amount of time because of weather. It can be hard to know where you will end up in number of birds until you get some experience with them, you may be surprised with how many eggs you can get from 10 hens but that can slow in winter. You plan to integrate at some future point so some extra room can be helpful. For these reasons I'd build larger rather than smaller. It gives you more flexibility.

Did you turn this into an article?

 

[micstrachan]

Great post @Ridgerunner!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Did you turn this into an article?

It is the link in my signature.

 

[aart]

Here is a design draft of the coop layout.

Nice orthographic views!
Is it actually to scale?
12' run looks a bit longer than 12' compared to 8' coop size.
What program are you using?

Over all it looks good, there's some devils in the details tho.

The nesting box will open with a flip down panel instead of the roof raising up.

Good idea!
I would drop the nests down to coop floor level so roosts can be a bit lower.
Add roosts to your layout.

The water will have poultry nipples attached

Vertical nipples, and pipes, won't hold up to your winters, they will freeze. You're going to need a heated waterer.

Your feed tube is blocking pullout tray...but an 8x8 pullout tray is not really viable.
Go with larger roof over hangs, all the way around.

That's all I see for now.
Nice drawings!

Oops, forgot to add this link about heights:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/coop-stack-up-how-high-stuff-works-well.73427/

 

[HenOnAJuneBug]

I wouldn't use a PVC pipe waterer in NY due to freezing concerns. Horizontal nipples on a bucket wrapped with a heat tape and then wrapped with insulation would work well in a NY winter IMO.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here is a design draft of the coop layout.
View attachment 1558541 View attachment 1558542
Both the water system and feeder system will be made out of a PVC pipe self feeding set-up. The water will have poultry nipples attached and the feed will be in a trough style.

The nesting box will open with a flip down panel instead of the roof raising up. I want to do this for the reasons of not having to worry about water getting in and having a 6 year old daughter to will always want to help get eggs.
View attachment 1558543 View attachment 1558544
On the right side it will have a large swing door to access all of the coop and also a full width clean out door that is flush will the floor to make for easy cleaning.

The floor will also have a layer of linoleum on it.
View attachment 1558545 View attachment 1558546

That is an elevated 8x8 coop, plenty big enough to give you room in there to do things. How high off the ground is it? Can you get under there to work on the feeder or waterer without crawling in chicken poop? Can you use a rake or something to retrieve and egg or a chicken that does not want to be retrieved? Consider your access under there.

One big advantage of the elevated coop is that the chickens will spend a lot of time under there dust bathing in the shade. And they should be able to get under there in the winter if there is snow on the ground. But chickens hate a strong cold wind more than snow. You might consider a windbreak to keep snow from blowing under there and give them shelter from blowing wind. I'm not sure I'd elevate the coop though, access under an 8x8 is pretty limited. I'd think you'd have enough room to feed and water inside that big coop.

An 8x8 needs to be a walk-in so you can access all of it. How tall is that, can you comfortably walk in? You show a half-door. Not sure what is going on.

I like the nests with the front opening. How high are they? Can you daughter see in them? Will you be going inside to collect eggs when it is raining? At least water will not be pouring over the door or going into the run.

In addition to roosts, show ventilation. As a minimum leave the area just under the overhang open (covered with hardware cloth for predators). A small gable vent with louvers up high on at least one of the ends will help a lot in the summer to let hot air rise and escape. If you go with a single sloped roof instead of a gable construction will be simpler and water will run off one side only. And you will have an opening under the overhang at the highest point which is great for ventilation.

I'm not sure that clean out tray will be functional. In an 8x8 it will be heavy, will you be able to pull it out? How will you reach the middle to remove bedding and poop once you pull it out? If it is just under the roosts maybe so you are using it as a sort of droppings board maybe. It could take some challenging fabrication to get it to work. Maybe I'm looking at it wrong but I'd consider a full-sized human door that opens outward at floor level with a removable barrier to keep bedding from falling out of an elevated coop so you can rake that stuff into a wheelbarrow when you clean it out. That would be a lot simpler fabrication and I think more functional.

The pop door needs to be high enough off the floor so bedding does not fall out or block it, especially when the chickens scratch in the bedding.

I don't know how you are planning on building that run, whether it will be covered or not. It looks like you are considering framing it with 2x4's or something similar. 8' high is good, you can walk under there. I don't think you'll have any issues with space with 10 hens, especially with the area under the coop available. With a lot of building materials coming in standard 8' lengths you might consider extending it another 4' but the extra wire could cost a bit. This is not going to be a cheap build anyway. If you put a solid roof on the run I'd slope it some so water runs off, I hate a flat roof. They leak or water stands up there and rots or rusts them. And consider snow and ice load so build it strong.

There is personal preference in a lot of what I wrote, others will have different opinions. This is meant more to give you things to think about instead of trying to tell you how to build it.

Good luck.

 

[wab11287]

Nice orthographic views!
Is it actually to scale?
12' run looks a bit longer than 12' compared to 8' coop size.
What program are you using?

Over all it looks good, there's some devils in the details tho.

Good idea!
I would drop the nests down to coop floor level so roosts can be a bit lower.
Add roosts to your layout.

Vertical nipples, and pipes, won't hold up to your winters, they will freeze. You're going to need a heated waterer.

Your feed tube is blocking pullout tray...but an 8x8 pullout tray is not really viable.
Go with larger roof over hangs, all the way around.

That's all I see for now.
Nice drawings!

Oops, forgot to add this link about heights:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/coop-stack-up-how-high-stuff-works-well.73427/

It was a quick and not extremely detailed layout. I have the fine details in my head mostly.

The layout of certain things like the feeding tube isn't exactly where it will be in the final layout. It was mainly to give me an idea of where I will be placing things and which walls it will be on.

For the scale of things it wasn't done perfectly to scale. I used adobe illustrator, because I do not have any type of program that I can make building designs in, so I didn't spend the extra time to make sure the sizes were scaled exactly right. Again, it was just to give an idea for myself on layout and placement mostly.

I really wish I had some type of program to put a lot more detail and scale correctly but I don't know of any good ones.

For the food and water during winter I will drain them in the outside feeders and have ones inside the coop which will stay above freezing temps. I will use a bucket with vertical nipples and a similar feed trough as outside.

I do not plan to have a pull out tray to clean the coop either. It will just be a drop down door the width of the coop that allows me to pull everything out with a rake into a wheelbarrow. I will also have the large swing door above if needed.

I wouldn't use a PVC pipe waterer in NY due to freezing concerns. Horizontal nipples on a bucket wrapped with a heat tape and then wrapped with insulation would work well in a NY winter IMO.

I will have the water inside the coop during winter so that wont be an issue.