Thanks for the reply. Those measurements are helpful, so my run area is roughly 430 square feet with several undercover protected places. So that's covered, but in regards to the coop it has a floor space of 4 square feet and currently 3 nesting boxes and 4 feet of roost (with space for another 4 feet). I'm not sure what set up you have but my girls come outside when the automatic door opens in the morning and only go back inside to lay and at night, so I am unsure as to why so much floor space is needed inside when it is never used?
To quote from an article I'm writing:
But I free range/have a huge run and my chickens only use the coop to sleep and lay eggs! Why do I need all that space inside?
You might not. As I've said, these are guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.
If you never close the pop door so that your coop and run function together as a fully integrated system that is the equivalent of a huge, open-air coop then your flock might be just fine for years, even decades.
If you are always out there to open the pop door at the crack of dawn or you have an ultra-reliable automatic door so that your chickens never lack access to their free range territory during the daylight hours then your flock might be just fine for years, even decades.
But when something happens ...
When a determined predator moves in and breaks through the fencing so that you have to confine the flock to the coop itself so that you can fix the run,
When an extreme weather event prevents your chickens from leaving shelter for days,
When an emergency calls you out of town and you can't find someone willing to be there at the crack of dawn to open the pop door,
Then you could have a mess on your hands.
Which brings us back to the issue of flexibility and options. Any time you push a system hard against it's limits you have to count on everything remaining stable -- exactly as it is without any changes. How well that's likely to work depends on your specific circumstances. You may never encounter an unfortunate circumstance -- some people DO hit the lottery, after all.
And here is a whole thread on when it's a good idea to have more than the minimums for space:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ave-more-than-the-minimums-for-space.1462570/
I am currently keeping 5 hens in a coop meant for 4 thanks to an unusually clement climate and a vastly-over-sized run. But my 4, 13-week-olds are sleeping in a crate because I CANNOT expect to move them into that coop to sleep, putting the density at less than 2 square feet per chicken, without bloodshed as they fight over roost space and even floor-sleeping space despite the fact that I open up soon after dawn any morning that I'm not ill.
The 4 square feet is really a very small -- the size of this doormat.
