Not sure I did the right thing....

[M1ssy8402]

Ok, so we got 6 chicks through TSC straight run 4/4 hoping for hens for eggs, 3 BR's and 3 RIR's, most if not all seemed to be showing cockerel tendencies, so on 5/8 ordered online 10 pullet BR's with 90 % accuracy and we went sent 12 that arrived 5/9. Now original coop we had supposedly holds 8 chickens, purchased another that states it holds up to 15 chickens... when we got the small ones we moved the 6 big ones to bigger coop since smaller area we were able to brood babies with proper heating better. Fast forward to today.... little ones are now about 6 weeks old and just not enough room in smaller coop. Have let big and little ones out together daily to free range for about 2 weeks and while the bigger roosters make their position known, no real harm has come. My one "top" rooster has caught few smaller ones in coop eating or drinking and was more rough than I'm comfortable with having them all cooped up together, so we switched coops tonight to let smaller ones have the room they need to roost in coop at night and still plenty of room for the 6 older, 11 week olds. However my "top dog" rooster more than let me and everyone else know he is not happy about the arrangement. He finally did go on in smaller coop and roost like the others. Planning on building pallet coop for 30+ chickens starting next month but in the meantime it makes more sense to me to have them where have roosting space at night. They free range from morning to dusk. I'm just wondering on other's opinions as I'm still pretty new to my chickens and the one big rooster made me feel bad lol even though the little ones went right on in the coop since they have more room whereas before they were trying to all roost on bar outside of coop......

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I have that "15 chicken" coop and I only use it for brooding chicks. It's way to small to hold adult birds long term, in my opinion.

You have 18 total, right? How many are you expecting to keep?

For ~15 I would build a coop that is at the very least 6x8 and have a run that is 10x15.

 

[Peeps61]

I think you did the right thing. Most animals are creatures of habit, and mine don't like change very much, but they adjust. Plan on building a bigger coop for all your birds as soon as possible and use your smaller coop to brood and grow out chicks. It works well that way for me. Since you are new to chickens, plan on adding a few new birds each year. That way, you'll have older birds to teach the younger birds how things are, and it makes your life a little easier. If you free range, you are bound to lose a few from time to time, so replacing won't mean removing others, unless you decide to do that.

 

[keesmom]

Are you planning to keep all those extra males?