How big of a coop do buff brahmas need?

[Valrek777]

So the wife and I got ahold of 14 unsexed buff brahmas, and they're about 2.5 weeks old. We don't know how many are male or female, but any excess roosters will likely end up as dinner.

How big of a coop will be needed? I've tried looking around for suggestions but most of what I find are roosting bar sizes instead of actual coop sizes.

Secondary question, since we are new with chickens- how and when do we determine their sex?

 

[Lor]

I guess that depends on how many you will be keeping.
What is usually discussed as a minimum is 4 square feet of space per chicken in the coop.

 

[SilverBirds]

There are a lot of great articles about it on this site. 4sq ft is the general rule of thumb for the coop and 10sq ft for the run. Bigger is always better though as you may fall victim of chicken math.

You can normally start to tell the sex at 4-8 weeks of age. Look for bigger and redder combs and wattles for the roos. At 10-12 weeks you can look at the saddle and hackle feathers. Roosters will have long wispy feathers whilst hens will have short round ones.

Good luck!

 

[Valrek777]

I guess that depends on how many you will be keeping.
What is usually discussed as a minimum is 4 square feet of space per chicken in the coop.

Yeah the final number will be a continuous mystery and slapping together a coop after they're sexed seems kinda last minute to me. I'll keep that 4 sq ft in mind though!

 

[GermanKennhuhn]

Congratulations on your chicks!

The average guidelines for space per chicken is 4 sq ft sq ft of space inside, and 8 sq ft of space in the run, but the more space the better. It’s hard to say how many females you’ll end up with, but assuming you keep half, you’ll need a 7x7 coop, and a 7x10 run. Again, the bigger the better, especially if you plan on buying more in the future.

As for sexing them, you can usually tell by their comb size and redness around 8 weeks of age.

 

[Valrek777]

A bigger coop is not a problem for the chickens.
So you could build a coop suitable for 14 birds.
At 4 square feet each, that would be 56 square feet, which could be 7 by 8 feet.

It's probably easier to just build it 8 feet square, which provides 64 square feet. That is a nice size for a coop, and would be fine for up to 16 chickens. If you only end up with a handful of females, they could enjoy the extra space, or you could buy some more females to add to them.

Or you could build a smaller coop, and if you have too many females for the coop size, you could butcher a few of them when you butcher the extra males.

Either way would let you build the coop without waiting to know the sexes.

A perfectly 8x8 coop sounds great. We will likely butcher whatever excess roosters we have and replace some of them with hens once everything's figured out and they're big enough for meat

 

[Tonyroo]

Brahmas are definitely bigger birds so the 4 square foot per bird makes sense.

 

[calboy147]

So the wife and I got ahold of 14 unsexed buff brahmas, and they're about 2.5 weeks old. We don't know how many are male or female, but any excess roosters will likely end up as dinner.

How big of a coop will be needed? I've tried looking around for suggestions but most of what I find are roosting bar sizes instead of actual coop sizes.

Secondary question, since we are new with chickens- how and when do we determine their sex?

I can't wait to hear how you do the nesting box math. Lol I am now down to 11 hens from 24 with 6 nesting boxes. They all fuss over the same two boxes.

 

[NatJ]

So the wife and I got ahold of 14 unsexed buff brahmas, and they're about 2.5 weeks old. We don't know how many are male or female, but any excess roosters will likely end up as dinner.

How big of a coop will be needed? I've tried looking around for suggestions but most of what I find are roosting bar sizes instead of actual coop sizes.

A bigger coop is not a problem for the chickens.
So you could build a coop suitable for 14 birds.
At 4 square feet each, that would be 56 square feet, which could be 7 by 8 feet.

It's probably easier to just build it 8 feet square, which provides 64 square feet. That is a nice size for a coop, and would be fine for up to 16 chickens. If you only end up with a handful of females, they could enjoy the extra space, or you could buy some more females to add to them.

Or you could build a smaller coop, and if you have too many females for the coop size, you could butcher a few of them when you butcher the extra males.

Either way would let you build the coop without waiting to know the sexes.

 

[Ursuline Chick]

I personally would build way bigger than I thought I would ever need. As you read some articles you will start to understand the whole chicken math syndrome. Also I like to stand up right in my coop and run. Saves me back pain.