How many chickens will fit in this coop?

[PurpleGizmo]

Hi there,

Without telling you exactly how many chicks I have—it's less than six—I'd like your advice on how many chickens I can comfortably fit in the coop I am building. Here is a picture of the coop so far (sorry about the 2x4s propped up in front):

Factoring the internal framing and a single nest box into my figures, the available floorspace is about 18.8 square feet, with about 80.4 cubic feet of internal volume. Assuming this will be the home for full-size chickens (Ameraucana, Barred Rock, and/or Buff Orpington), how many chickens could fit in this coop? Three? Four? Five?

Incidentally, the run will extend underneath and to the left of the coop. I haven't figured out the final size for it, but your answers will help me decide.

Thanks!

 

[annek]

At 4' per chicken 4-5. The recommended run size is 10' per chicken if no free ranging. In your climate this should work but you may want to cover the run partially because of rain.

 

[PurpleGizmo]

Quote:
Hi annek,

Thanks for your input! The coop is five feet deep so that I could extend the run an even two feet for every chicken that I would add—that made some other parts of the construction a pain but this is my first (last?) time building a coop!

I am planning to cover the run completely with Suntuf roofing (corrugated polycarbonate plastic).

For the record, we have four five-week old pullets right now and only planned on keeping three. The fourth was bought in case one revealed itself as a rooster or died. Now that I'm having to choose who goes, it doesn't seem right to remove any of them and disrupt the dynamics of the group. If I can keep all four, I will.

 

[patandchickens]

If you are in the wet part of the state (sorry, I suck at PNW geography and have no map handy

) then you might consider adding a small roofed area of the run (roofing the entire run woudl be better, fo course, but also spendier) so they can easily get out and underneath the coop to be outside but dry. In which case, I could see going as low as 3 sq ft per chicken indoors if you really wanted (=6 chickens).

Personally, even with a roofed or partially roofed run, I would tend to stick more to the 3-4 chicken end of the spectrum, but it's a continuum... it is not like if you get one toe over some imaginary line the chickens will suddenly spontaneously combust or something. Well, if you cross some imaginary crowding line they can start picking at each other, but the problem is that line is in a different place for every coop and every set of particular individual chickens so it cannot be predicted with precision.

Basically it sounds like you are being sensible about this, so, do whatcha want, it'll probably be fine

Have fun,

Pat

 

[chickens3]

i would say about 4 or 5

 

[emilyweck]

Your four little ones should fit just perfectly! Great looking coop!

 

[Zahboo]

4.7. You could get away with 5. If you have bantams it'd hold 9.4