how many chickens can my coop and run hold

[countryboy1988]

hi frist let me start off by saying i am new to this but i would like to know how many chickens my coop which is 8x8 and my run is 10x10 how many chickens could fit in this size coop and do well i look forward to your answers and any help you might hav e to offer i will be geting road island red if this helps any thanks

 

[Imp]

Quote:

Standard wisdom suggests 4 sf in the coop and 10 sf in the run. You could do 16 in the coop and 10 in the run, but if you free range or have banties you can get by with less space.
Good luck
Imp

 

[MiniBeesKnees]

So if my coop is 10 x 10 it will handle 25-30 banties, and if my yard is about 500 square feet I have plenty of run room?

 

[Imp]

I don't have banties, but read that 3 sf each. So "yes".

Imp

 

[teach1rusl]

Quote:
I'm pretty new to chickens myself. But from what I've gathered, most people on BYC refer to the housing as the coop...and the enclosed outside area as the run. But some books I've read refer to the whole set-up as the coop. Earlier you said your coop/henhouse is 8x8??? So that's 64 sq. feet. With standards that's room for 16 birds. From what I've read, bantums can use have that space. So yes, you could have that many in the coop. Your run is 100 sq. feet. So if you go by the "half the space" rule for that, which is 10sq. feet per bird for standards, then you have only enough room for 20 birds in the run. However, as someone else indicated, if they are going to be outside the run a decent amount free ranging, a few more than that would be okay. A VERY COMMON train of thought (here on BYC) is that the more room the better, however. So if you can do with the lower number, that would be best.

Welcome from Indiana by the way!

Oops...lol...sorry beesknees!!! Thought you were the original poster!!

Yes...at 100 sq. feet and that large of a run space, you could easily keep that many bantums!!

 

[Olive Hill]

The simple answer is yes, but it's also good to keep in mind if you're using "yard" as in your actual lawn, not just a separate chicken yard that the closer you get to the "maximum" in an area the more likely they are to tear it up. So, if you want chicken and lawn to coexist "peacefully" and still have live grass you're going to want to shoot under the max number for the area you have.

 

[Imp]

Quote:
Quite right. Someone with experience on here, patandchickens I think, recommends 450 sf per bird to keep lawn. I have 4 hens that free range all day on about 4000 sf of lawn with no damage. I do throw scratch into the mossy areas so they will demoss that area.

Imp-They gotta earn their scratch

 

[MiniBeesKnees]

Sorry for the confusion...I have a 10 x 10 x 10 shed recently built for my coop. High roof with a loft. The chicken yard is just for the chickens...so their 'run'. It has 6.5 foot high sides as I'm trying to keep them from flying out and I don't want to trim their wings.

Right now the run is bare dirt and every day I pull some of my prodigious overgrown grass-like weeds and give it to them. They like it. It will be next spring before I put in windows and a little door. (pop door?) In the meantime they have a corregated metal lean to arrangement in the run to get under and I leave the coop door open. I put up the lean to yesterday as they were squeezing out under the coop and running away from home so I blocked that off.

I originally planned on three chickens and no roosters (although I'm rural and can have roos) but that plan was forgotten long ago. Right now I have one mature hen with five chicks, her husband (all OE) a D'Uccle rooster and three orphans three months old hatched from mixed eggs under the D'Uccles mate who unfortunately was gotten by a predator. The coop and run were built because of her murder.

But I can see where this is all going to go to. I spend hours of my peaceful retirement just sitting out there watching them.

 

[MiniBeesKnees]

My lot is fenced...very rural...but there is no lawn so to speak. I'm in the woods and I'm going to sacrifice most of my driveway to make a small garden next year. Everywhere else is heavily shaded and grass doesn't grow. I used to let them out into the yard but sometimes they'd take to the trees, or go under the house and not go home at night. And then I started having chicks who would just walk right through the fence followed by the hen who would fly over that four foot fence.