Do proportions matter for same square footage?

[rosemarythyme]

I don't think the proportions matter too much to the chickens.

But once it gets skinnier than a certain size, that matters.
For example, if two chickens walk past each other, do they have enough personal space? Or does one peck the other for crowding?

So 2 feet wide is probably fine for a single hen raising chicks, but I would try for 4 feet or more of width if you are going to have adult chickens sharing the space.

Up to about 12 feet wide, more square is probably better. Past that, I don't think it matters much. So I would expect 36 x 36 or 12 x 108 to be equally good. (If you were building a really LARGE run, you might deal with numbers like those. And 12 feet wide is much easier to roof than 36 feet wide.)

x3. Width matters in that a chicken's personal bubble is larger than the chicken itself, so having sufficient width in a run allows birds to pass one another without anyone taking offense. Personally I'd suggest 6'+ minimum width to allow for that.

And yes if a run needs to be roofed or even netted over, it's far easier to do with a run that's more "narrow," so that's another consideration.