How big should a coop be.

[Fancy Feather Poultry]

How big should a coop be 8X8? or what? I want to fit at the most 10-15 birds how big does it have to be?

 

[aran]

silke..you want 4 sq feet per bird in the coop ( give or take) and 10 sqfeet in the run.
--> for 10 birds you would need 40sq feet but you could probably get away with making an 8x4 coop which is 32 sq feet. (3.2 sq feet per bird)
--> for 15 birds = 60sq feet in the coop...an 8x8 would be 64 sq feet which would be perfect...you could get one more chicken!

Are we talking about bantams or standards by the way? the above measurements are for standards.

 

[speckledhen]

aran is correct. My original coop was 8x8 and I had 10 pullets in there. I added a rooster. Later on, when I began hatching, I added 12 ft to the length of it. You can put up to 15 standards in it, but if they're locked up for long periods, it can get a little messy. An even dozen in the coop is perfect at that size.

 

[Fancy Feather Poultry]

Well, I wanna make my coop now but I have 3 chicks right now and 12 buff orp eggs coming satruday or tommorow. What I am trying to say is im not sure how many chicks im gonna be left with or how many im gonna have, Im hanging here not knowing what I should do any suggestions? I need to make something that will fit them all and will cost under 100$ got any suggestions or know any plans for one.


Heres a link I talked to the lady and got the plans think it could fit all of them:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=64&p=5


P.S the coop is pink at the bottom of the link.

 

[speckledhen]

Well, that would be a good nursery coop or for a few bantams as she says at the bottom of the page, provided the chicken wire was replaced with hardware cloth, but it wont be large enough for that many full grown chickens, especially Buff Orps. My 8x8 cost just under $400 and that was using alot of found and recycled materials.

 

[GoodEgg]

I'm in the same boat ... except I have 26 chickens (only 20 heavies).

I need a coop ... quick! and cheap! and I am finding that my construction skills are limited (or else the tools inadequate, not sure which. maybe just bad luck.)

Anyway, I wanted to share some things I have found helpful to look at. Maybe it will help. Oh, and I visited a salvage yard today and their prices were a lot better than hardware store. A lot of my materials I got from freecyle.com too, but am needing a little more. Craigslist.org is a good place to check also. And construction sites for lots of useful throw-aways. I plan to look for free pallets and save them up for my next project, but no time to wait for this one.

Here's some coop info sites ... I hope they help some!

chicken coop article
chicken tractors

Hmmm ... I thought I had one more, but these are some of the ideas I have considered, and will probably modify to use.

Hope that helps!
trish

editing trying to fix links ... I thought I already figured out how to do this, lol