How did you determine how big your run should be?

[teach1rusl]

As others have said, build bigger than you think you'll need. And keep in mind that the 10 sq. ft. is the minimum recommended - more space is always beneficial...better chances of retaining some green growth and less cleaning.
As someone else mentioned, consider using measurements that traditional lumber comes in. And you may eventually want to cover your run, which is easier if it's somewhat narrow. For example, an 8 ft. wide run (no matter how long it is) is much easier to cover than a wider run. For example, a run that's 8 x 16 would conserve material (because standard 2x4s come 8ft), plus is narrow enough to cover.

Of course if you know you'll never cover your run, and are just doing posts with wire fencing strung between them, then it doesn't really matter.

 

[LN2008]

Quote:
How many birds do you have?

 

[TDM]

Lot's of crap about chicken math, four square feet per bird in the coop, and ten square feet per bird in the run. International standard is TWO square feet per bird in the coop. I will never have less than 86 square feet per bird in the run, or one acre per 500 birds.

 

[thebirdguy]

Right now I have 16940 square feet per bird... as soon as the teenagers go out, that will drop to 6826 square feet... I figure I have a little more room on my 10.5 acres before they get crowded... at least another year...

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

You already received the advice about thinking about standard lumber sizing but I thought I'd add a thought for standard hardware cloth or chicken wire sizing as well. I planned on leaving 36" between the 2"X4" studs that made up my run frame because the hardware cloth came in 36" widths and figured the length of my run would be increments of 3'. I then did some quick calculations to determine the height and width of my run trying to get at least head height and a 18" skirt and then decided maximum width I could have in order to have the largest size with the least wasted materials.

 

[ll]

My bird's run was determined by ... our base beams are 8ft long / we ordered our hardware cloth 4ft x100 ... that left nice easy cuts to make, just had to piece together two 4ft lengths. Also did 2ft aprons around entire thing - one cut into the 4ft length

no extra cutting, no waste.

 

[debid]

The gently used kennel we found on Craigslist was 10'x10' so that was our answer. It seems like plenty of room for our 10 birds on the rare occasion they cannot go out to range.

 

[Gyoza]

I'm planning on getting 50 RIR. How big of a coop should I build?

Thank you.

 

[gale65]

We decided the size based on how much space we could give up in the area where the coop and run would be. On one end there is a big shelter thingy that holds our firewood so dh had to be able to pull in to that area with the pickup to load and unload wood. On the other end is the east yard of our machine shed and dh needs enough room to be able to use the tractor to pull in the planters and sprayers and stuff plus the combine and heads to put them in the shed. Luckily we left enough room to add a new coop on that end. Our run is 10 x 24. Approximately.