My wife has FINALLY allowed me to get chickens! I live south of Boston and love all things eggs, in all ways. a close neighbor has had a few chickens for a while and has on occasion shared some eggs and they are incredible. the design and creation of the coop has begun, it will be 15 inches off the ground, and will be 3x3 feet. it will have a sloping roof, and be 4 feet high on one side, 3 feet on the other. One entire side of the coop will swing open for cleaning and egg harvesting. Our backyard is completely fenced in with 7 foot walls, so they will most likely be walking around all day in the yard. We are looking to get only 4 chickens at this point, and were thinking about getting different kinds of chickens- 2 Rhode Island reds, 1 buff orpington and 1 Plymouth Rock. looking forward to starting this process and having some fun!
Hi and welcome to BYC - glad that you have joined us. Good luck with the coop build - just make it as big as you can, cos chicken maths gets us all in the end! You'll find lots of info in the Learning Centre (even if you have lots of experience) https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center, and if you have a specific topic in mind, just type it in the search box - there's a wealth of information on past and present threads. You may wish to consider joining your state thread as it will put you in touch with other BYC members in your area - https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/270925/find-your-states-thread All the best CT
Rule of thumb is 4-5 sq. feet per bird in the coop - excluding nest boxes and roosts and 10 sq. feet per bird in the out run. Chickens can get very nasty if they are crowded. 3 x 3 coop would only hold 2 grown chickens. I don't know what area you are in - the 7 ft. walls sound good but raptors could still target them.
We have plenty of tree cover, and the coop will have a a run that is completely contained attached to it. Do you really think that the coop will be too small? I was assuming it was total square footage, not just floor square footage. the birds will only be in the coop at night and to lay, the yard is well covered with trees and is quite private.
