How many girls can I house?

[amorrill]

I currently have three hens (two standard, one banty), and want at least one more. In my city, I can have up to 5, and so of course that is tempting. There are a million "rules of thumb" for how much room/bird, and they all seem to be different, so I don't know what to think. I have 32 square feet of coop/covered run for my girls. There are two nest boxes, and two 4 foot roosts inside the coop. They have the door between the coop and run open all day, and when I am home evenings and days off (I only work 14 days/month) they are "free range" in my fenced yard.

Until I got rid of my rooster recently, there were 4 birds living in the coop quite contentedly, so I am not concerned about adding one more hen. I just don't want to get a fifth if it would be cruel. I am in WI, so I don't know how much they would want to range around in the winter when it's cold either, I'm kind of planning to leave that up to them. What do you think?

 

[Kaitie09]

Most people on this website will tell you 4sq feet per (large) bird inside and 10 outside. Bantams would be cut in half. You could go with 3 sq feet inside because of your colder climate, it will keep them warmer in the winter. You could also go probably go with 6-8 in the run since you let them out every day.

So lets say you have 4 large breeds and one bantam. That would be 3x4+2=14 sq ft inside (not including nesting boxes). Now 4x8+5= 37 sq feet outside. So for a total you would want about 51 sq feet for the coop and run.

However, You also need to consider how much snow you get and make accommodations for that. What if you have a blizzard and the girls are stuck in the coop for a week straight? In that case, the more room the better. In my case, my girls won't step on the ground if there is more than 4in of snow. So to accommodate them, we covered the run so that it gets no snowfall all winter long, and the girls have more room.