Interesting and timely discussion. We have an 8' x 8' coop with all of the floor space open. Nest boxes are on the exterior. The feed bin is mounted to the wall. We have two 8' roosts and just added a dropping board a couple of weeks ago. (It's amazing how much cleaner the coop is now.) Our run is 16' x 20' and completely covered with a roof. We have 17 standard size pullets. They only use the coop for sleeping, egg laying, eating and drinking. All treats are given in the run. We have a lot of rain here but a very limited amount of snow. Sometimes we go several years in a row with no more than 1 or 2 inches of snow all winter. Night time temperatures stay above 25 degrees most of the time. Most winters our coldest temperature is above 10 degrees. There is about 20 sq ft of covered run space for each pullet. We do NOT have a rooster. I have checked the roost many times at night and found that all but 1 or 2 are using one roost. I have about 7' of unused roost space. I have 5 next boxes. I have never seen more than 3 nests occupied at a time.
We are debating if we can add a few more pullets next spring. 4 sq ft per bird says we should only have 16 birds. We are one over that with 17. I know that I should expand the coop before adding more pullets but that may not be financially possible in the spring. I am thinking that I could comfortably drop down to 3 sq ft of coop space since they don't use it much during the day. I will watch them throughout the winter before making a final decision to expand. I like the suggestion that someone made of putting plastic or tarps on the sides of the run to partially enclose it. I think I may use tarps to cover the North side of the run for the winter. This will help keep it drier. I already have some tarps in the garage that I can use.
What I am really hoping will happen is that my kids will finally give in and agree to let me convert their unused outdoor play house into a second coop. It is about 8' x 8'. Other then the difficult task moving it, it will be very easy to convert into a very nice coop. I would probably do it in a weekend. Moving it will take a 3 or 4 helpers with strong backs, a flat bed heavy duty trailer, and four camper jacks to lift it and at least a day to move. At least this time we will not be moving it across town... We only need to move it about 100 feet.
So that makes it much easier.
