More than doubling flock size

[Rusty Hills Farm]

the recommended sq feet per bird is based on the assumption that birds are confined to that space. If they are not, then it is irrelevant.

Very few of us leave our birds unconfined (ie roaming loose) at night. They are confined for their own protection from predators. They need approx 12" per bird on the roost. Smaller birds need a bit less BUT all birds need sufficient roosting space. Most of us are not factory chicken keepers who are only interested in cramming as many birds in a coop as we can manage to squeeze in. We CARE about such niceties as their quality of life and ONLY our care can give that to them. They cannot provide it for themselves. So it's up to US to do right by them. Sorry, but to this old geezer acting responsibly to living creatures counts more than how pretty the coops look.

Rusty

 

[Mrs. K]

We all give advice from the point of view of our own coop. Which includes weather, climate and predators that are unique to us. I looked back through the OP - and do not see an indication what part of the world they are in.

Birds can do squabble at night, and here in SD in the long dark nights of winter, they are roosted up from 4:00pm - 7:00 am. In other places in the world, maybe more time, maybe less. And I agree with the above post, some flocks can tolerate squeezing together and some birds cannot tolerate it at all.

Seldom are my birds locked in the coop, but I have that option if I need it. I do let mine out to free range, but mine are also able to be kept in lockdown 24/7 for weeks when predators come around.

Always solve for peace in the flock, the flock manager has to change something. I do think the pin less peepers have given a lot of help to people with a bit of over crowding.Wishing won't make them get along, building something else takes time and money, letting some birds go somewhere else takes some figuring out, the peepers could be an immediate solution.

Mrs K

 

[Smithjdsr]

You might try designating one of the coops as the juvenile one and moving out any adult that went in to roost.

But with 21 birds and capacity for 18 the problem is your daughter bought too many when she added a dozen pullets. So you should either buy a 4th coop (been there, done that ) or remove 3 birds from the flock.

For what it is worth, all the criticisms above from people saying your coops are too small is commonly encountered on BYC from people who leave their chickens confined in their coop for most or all of the time, and apparently don't understand that an Eglu like a Nestera is meant only for roosting and laying in; the birds do not spend the rest of their time in them. So you can ignore their admonitions about space as well intentioned but misdirected advice.

Thanks. Yes, the chickens don’t stay in the coops- they’re just for laying and sleeping. I have a 200 sq ft (+, but 200 is the legal limit in town, so it’s 200) run fenced with an electric fence net around it, and the three coops sit in that run. It’s a sand floor and it seems to clean and drain nicely. The plan for this summer is to add a full hardware cloth run structure around the fenced area and a roof. (So far the local fox hasn’t breached the electric fence, so fingers crossed until I can get the run built and screened in.)

So, we caught the one mature bird going into the third coop and put her in one of the other two coops, and the nine mature birds were quite happy at 4 in one and 5 in the other, as it has been since last summer. All 11 new birds put themselves in the third coop and, at their size, they fit just fine. For now, that’s our solution. As the pullets grow, they will need to have more coop space for sleeping. During the day, there’s plenty of space for a flock of 9 mature and a second flock of 11 young birds.

I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep all 11. One of the new pullets is very cross-beaked. We have a deep feeder (Eglu comes with a tub style feeder) that she uses and she seems to be growing at about the same rate as the others, but it seems sort of touch and go sometimes.

Another of the ‘pullets’ has an Adam’s apple and facial hair (jk). We are not allowed to have a rooster in town, so if ‘she’ turns out to be poultry non grata we’ll be closer to the 18 we should have for coop capacity.

 

[Smithjdsr]

We all give advice from the point of view of our own coop. Which includes weather, climate and predators that are unique to us. I looked back through the OP - and do not see an indication what part of the world they are in.

Birds can do squabble at night, and here in SD in the long dark nights of winter, they are roosted up from 4:00pm - 7:00 am. In other places in the world, maybe more time, maybe less. And I agree with the above post, some flocks can tolerate squeezing together and some birds cannot tolerate it at all.

Seldom are my birds locked in the coop, but I have that option if I need it. I do let mine out to free range, but mine are also able to be kept in lockdown 24/7 for weeks when predators come around.

Always solve for peace in the flock, the flock manager has to change something. I do think the pin less peepers have given a lot of help to people with a bit of over crowding.Wishing won't make them get along, building something else takes time and money, letting some birds go somewhere else takes some figuring out, the peepers could be an immediate solution.

Mrs K

Sorry. I’m in Iowa. It’s pretty nice right now now, but summer will be hot and humid and a few winter days will be 10 degrees or more below zero. Hopefully by winter I’ll have a roof over 200 sq ft and a full screen around the area.

We had the Eglu 12 foot runs set up, but that seemed small even for 9 birds, so we took them off before introducing the new pullets.