Minimum height for chickens

[jsreb]

Hello all we are new here

We want our chickens to be able to go underneath the coop. What is the minimum height for chickens to walk under the coop?

Thanks ,
J & C

UPDATE

Our coop is under construction. It will be 7' x 9' and we have 8 Road Island Reds.
They will have a 10' x 10' outside run area besides going under the building.
Just letting them go under the coop for a cool area.

 

[Chieftain]

I don't thing there really is a minimum, of course it depends on what variety of chook you intend to raise. A Jersey Giant needs more head room than a Bantam, and so forth.

I gave mine 2' of clearance and it seems to work pretty well, in that there is enough room for the sun to shine under there, and heat it up enough to make it the favorite spot for dustbathing...

 

[jsreb]

Maybe 12" ???

 

[Backyard_Chicken_rancher]

With RIR 2 feet high should be just about right for them or you can place there food/waterer under there as well this way it will stay cool in the summer heat so measure the height (up off the ground) of those and then add a few inches and that will give you the right height for them but I would go with 2-3 feet.


Good luck to you and

were glad tohave you join us

here at the BYC we will be watching for those pictures of that coop when it is finished.

 

[patandchickens]

So, this is just *part* of their run space, yes, not the whole thing? And we're talking about normal-sized large fowl chickens? If so:

They can hunker down and stuff themselves into a 12" high space but I would really suggest going more like 14-16". They will still have to squish down a bit, but I had that height under the 'house' part of my tractor and the girls seemed to use it just fine for shade or to get out of the rain.

HOWEVER if they will have access to the *entire* area under a 7x9 coop, you should think seriously about human access. I guarantee you that at some point you are going to need to get under there yourself -- to retrieve an egg, to retrieve a sick or injured chicken, to retrieve an object -- and you should think about how much you *really* want to be wriggling on your belly through chicken poo through a 12" high space. I would suggest either raising it a bit higher, like 18" or 2', or blocking some of the area off so the chickens can't go further in than you can reach from outside.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[gryeyes]

Huh. I'm building a new coop, and its foundation is made of six concrete blocks. The kinds with two holes through them, general concrete blocks. Most of the coop will be outside of the run; I'm going to bring the fence up to the first third of the coop. The pop door will, of course, be in that "third" of the coop area inside the run.

So, I had planned on putting hardware cloth around the bottom of the coop, for the two-thirds section outside the run, but leave it open on the inside of the run. So chickens could snuggle under there if they so chose. But now I see that might be a really ill-advised idea.

Should I just hardware cloth around the one third of the coop so the CHICKENS can't get under there, and any critter sneaking under the other two thirds of the coop is stopped by the hardware cloth "completing" the run enclosure around the section of the coop inside the run????

My coop is 4 ft wide by 8 ft long, with about 3 foot of the 8 foot length projecting into the run. 5 feet outside. Which would be better, hardware cloth covering 14 feet of the coop bottom or covering 10 feet of the bottom?

Does my question make sense??