How High off the Ground?

[elmo]

The usual rule of thumb is 4 square feet per chicken of indoor space, so 16 square feet is actually sufficient for 4 chickens.

 

[elmo]

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16 square feet is the dimension of the coop, not the run, as I understand it.

 

[elmo]

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I have my coop on 24" legs. I wouldn't make the legs any shorter than this, not because of the height of the chicken but because anything lower than this is going to make it hard for you to rake under the coop to clean it out. And there might be a time you'd need to ...ugh...crawl under there to get something out, an egg, perhaps.

Your other question about the headroom is actually pretty important from a design perspective, and that's connected to the ventilation question. You want to have your vents higher than your roosts so you can leave them open or mostly open all winter. So...figure the height of your roost, plus about 16 to 24 inches, then the level of your vent.

 

[AtholCoop]

I set mine just a touch higher than my muck cart.

 

[hallerlake]

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Sorry. I clearly wasn't awake when I wrote that.

I'd say mine are about a foot tall, except when they are doing their dominance postures. Then, they're significantly taller.

 

[elmo]

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Yes! Isn't it amazing how long a chicken neck can suddenly become!? And several of ours can raise the feathers around their heads/necks like those awful poison spitting dinosarus in the movie, Jurassic Park. It's chilling ...or it would be if they were bigger than a pound each.

 

[hallerlake]

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Yes! Isn't it amazing how long a chicken neck can suddenly become!? And several of ours can raise the feathers around their heads/necks like those awful poison spitting dinosarus in the movie, Jurassic Park. It's chilling ...or it would be if they were bigger than a pound each.

All mine raise their hackles. They think they're pretty tough.

 

[rufus]

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And a tall coop will be noticed by neighbors and zoning inspectors.

Rufus

 

[VVolfpack]

I'm illegal here so I kept it under the top of the fence and behind a neighbors shed so it can't be seen unless you really look for it.

 

[write2caroline]

I have a pallet coop that is square. My husband made the legs long enough so the floor comes at about my waist. That is so they get the shade but more importantly for me - to make cleaning it easier. I open the front two doors and the back rear door and push the shavings out. The floor itself has vinyl tiles to make cleaning easier too. The chicks inside are now 8 weeks old but they have been able to get in and out with a ladder on one side and we stacked two pallets underneath with some blocks of wood so they could get inbetween the pallets and hide from the bigger birds and also for shade. I also hung a tarp over the tarp. They get morning sun and afternoon shade.
Caroline