Hey guys!
Well to start off, I've already got a great coop/run that my boyfriend made me. He did a great job and I'm so proud! But of course it's really only big enough for about 10 chickens and right now I've got 23 chicks ranging in age from 3 weeks to 8 weeks. They're quite comfortable but I know I'm going to need more room for them....and of course I just bought an incubator and the neighbor gave me a dozen eggs and I won an auction for 18 eggs and the neighbor is going to give me as many more as I need to fill the incubator. So that means I need more room!
And we all know how addicting chickens are so really I'll need lots and lots of runs and coops. We were trying to come up with a good plan that would include several runs so I can seperate by breed/gender/who gets along with who/etc. The first plan was a simple one with 5 runs connected, an alley, and another 5 runs on the other side for a total of 10 pens in a 40x30 foot space (approx). This was great but I wanted something a little different. One requirement was that I wanted to have some sort of "yard" that the chickens could be let out but still not be able to just go wherever they wanted. It would need to be connected to every run so I could simply let out whichever pen of chickens would get extra exploring time that day. I also wanted it to be multi-purpose just in case we decided we would like a turkey or two.
So here is what we came up with:
*All the little triangle things are doors
*Bottom left corner would be the entrance to the entire enclosure and also a storage room for feed, etc.
*There's a total of 11 pens
*All the pens around the outside will be covered with tin, have hardware cloth on the outside wall and the wall next to the yard, and chicken wire on the walls between pens (cut costs without risking predators)
*The middle yard will be 20x20
*Overall it will be about 32 feet wide x 32 feet long
*Each pen will have a next box. During the summer it will be open-sided to let wind get through and during the winter we'll cover some of the sides to keep in the heat
If my calculations are correct it should be able to hold close to 200 chickens including the yard's square footage.
Close to half are bantums so they're not takin up as much space remember.
Don't ya know dear boyfriend is thrilled!
So what do y'all think of the set up?
Well to start off, I've already got a great coop/run that my boyfriend made me. He did a great job and I'm so proud! But of course it's really only big enough for about 10 chickens and right now I've got 23 chicks ranging in age from 3 weeks to 8 weeks. They're quite comfortable but I know I'm going to need more room for them....and of course I just bought an incubator and the neighbor gave me a dozen eggs and I won an auction for 18 eggs and the neighbor is going to give me as many more as I need to fill the incubator. So that means I need more room!
And we all know how addicting chickens are so really I'll need lots and lots of runs and coops. We were trying to come up with a good plan that would include several runs so I can seperate by breed/gender/who gets along with who/etc. The first plan was a simple one with 5 runs connected, an alley, and another 5 runs on the other side for a total of 10 pens in a 40x30 foot space (approx). This was great but I wanted something a little different. One requirement was that I wanted to have some sort of "yard" that the chickens could be let out but still not be able to just go wherever they wanted. It would need to be connected to every run so I could simply let out whichever pen of chickens would get extra exploring time that day. I also wanted it to be multi-purpose just in case we decided we would like a turkey or two.
So here is what we came up with:
*All the little triangle things are doors
*Bottom left corner would be the entrance to the entire enclosure and also a storage room for feed, etc.
*There's a total of 11 pens
*All the pens around the outside will be covered with tin, have hardware cloth on the outside wall and the wall next to the yard, and chicken wire on the walls between pens (cut costs without risking predators)
*The middle yard will be 20x20
*Overall it will be about 32 feet wide x 32 feet long
*Each pen will have a next box. During the summer it will be open-sided to let wind get through and during the winter we'll cover some of the sides to keep in the heat
If my calculations are correct it should be able to hold close to 200 chickens including the yard's square footage.
Don't ya know dear boyfriend is thrilled!
So what do y'all think of the set up?
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