Grace Brooks
Chirping
Hello chicken enthusiasts!
We are really excited about getting chickens, for pets, eggs and education for my 3 year old homeschooled daughter. So excited our landlord has approved. We live on the edge of a city and space is tight. We have started the foundation for our coop and have only managed to get a 15 square foot footprint to build on the ground, we have 6 feet of height, and it's fairly narrow: 28" wide by 81" long. They will have that space for the run and the coop will sit on top. We were thinking of having the actual coop portion be about 28" by 36", but can make it longer. I was operating under 2 sq ft. per bantam in coop, but there is only 15 sq ft in run. So my question is, with such a small space, can we keep 3 bantams? I am a stay at home mama, but we are often out and about. I can let them free range in the yard (mostly concrete/rocks, but there are a couple trees and some succulents to poke around) while I supervise, but not unsupervised, because cats, hawks, coyotes, etc. are common here. We would like to get eggs, but understand we won't get enough for our family of 3 with three bantams, although I have read that bantam easter eggers are very good layers. Besides that breed, we are considering the bantam d'uccle, a silky (for cuteness), and the bantam cochin. I have considered seramas (absolutely adorable), but they are only sold straight run and we don't want to end up with roosters/even more chickens. I am interested in quail too, but same problem with not being able to get just hens and they don't seem like they would make great pets, or enjoy a cuddle at all. I know more space is best, but can we make it work if this is all the space we have? Thank you in advance for advice!
We are really excited about getting chickens, for pets, eggs and education for my 3 year old homeschooled daughter. So excited our landlord has approved. We live on the edge of a city and space is tight. We have started the foundation for our coop and have only managed to get a 15 square foot footprint to build on the ground, we have 6 feet of height, and it's fairly narrow: 28" wide by 81" long. They will have that space for the run and the coop will sit on top. We were thinking of having the actual coop portion be about 28" by 36", but can make it longer. I was operating under 2 sq ft. per bantam in coop, but there is only 15 sq ft in run. So my question is, with such a small space, can we keep 3 bantams? I am a stay at home mama, but we are often out and about. I can let them free range in the yard (mostly concrete/rocks, but there are a couple trees and some succulents to poke around) while I supervise, but not unsupervised, because cats, hawks, coyotes, etc. are common here. We would like to get eggs, but understand we won't get enough for our family of 3 with three bantams, although I have read that bantam easter eggers are very good layers. Besides that breed, we are considering the bantam d'uccle, a silky (for cuteness), and the bantam cochin. I have considered seramas (absolutely adorable), but they are only sold straight run and we don't want to end up with roosters/even more chickens. I am interested in quail too, but same problem with not being able to get just hens and they don't seem like they would make great pets, or enjoy a cuddle at all. I know more space is best, but can we make it work if this is all the space we have? Thank you in advance for advice!
We are in southern california so we are more interested in heat tolerant birds, it never gets colder than low 40s here.
