Please let me know How much space do you have for your chickens

[devora]

Why don't you free range them?

I know little about minks but aren't they nocturnal? And if you fence off the neighbor's then you'd be OK, assuming the girls would even go there. Once you let them out they are gonna wanna be out every day (which is great for them!).

I have left our place w/ our girls out. A shopping trip to town, that sort of thing. Heck, some of the time I can't see where they are roaming and I doubt every person who free ranges watches their birds the entire time. Our girls do fine and they are so happy ranging.

 

[ragerkid2]

Why don't you free range them?

I know little about minks but aren't they nocturnal? And if you fence off the neighbor's then you'd be OK, assuming the girls would even go there. Once you let them out they are gonna wanna be out every day (which is great for them!).

I have left our place w/ our girls out. A shopping trip to town, that sort of thing. Heck, some of the time I can't see where they are roaming and I doubt every person who free ranges watches their birds the entire time. Our girls do fine and they are so happy ranging.

Some days I don't see my birds from the time I let them out till the time I lock them up. They just disappear. One even took a vacation to a local neighborhood one night. (we think she got trapped in someone's garage over night) came back the next day, thankfully. We thought a hawk got her.

 

[AHDCST]

Welcome to the flock and the addiction of chicken farming and being owned by the adorable little stinkers! We built a what I thought was huge chicken coop. It wasn't enough. You will see posts on this site about the chicken math! They seem to grab your heart and hold on and you will end up with way more chickens then you imagined! Best bet is to free range them if possible or at least build them a 10x10 yard to be in during the day. I'm not sure what sort of predators you may have but try to keep your birds as safe as possible. I have found that with the big yard to play in they don't need as much space in the coop. Mine are out in their yards all day and only go in to lay or to roost at night.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thanks for the advice, I will work something out.  Do you think I could let them wander around the barn when the weather is bad? That would give them at least another 500 square feet when the animals are in and 1000 square feet when they are out, but its mostly concrete floor and we feed the horses timothy hay, so lots of that will be around.  Would digging around a horse or goat stall make them sick.  We much out daily, but there are always pieces left behind.  As far as electric poultry netting, can it have a top on it? I have leghorns and hear they are pretty flighty.

They will not get sick. Don't worry about that. They will scratch that manure apart looking for bits of food. They will enjoy that and get a lot of good nutrition. Chickens have been doing that on farms for thousands of years. Dust may not be a big problem for you since you have that concrete floor. I have a shed with a dirt floor they like to hang in during the day. They scratch dust all over everything. They will also perch and poop on a lot of stuff. If you have shelves, they'll fly up there and knoock stuff off.

It's hard to say how much room I have per chicken. My coop is 8' x 12', my run is 12' x 32', and they free range a lot. My main breeding/laying flock is 1 rooster and 6 or 7 hens, but I raise them mainly for meat and seldom have that few chickens. Sometimes it is up in the 30's, but usually several of those are chicks.

The main reason you get so many different opinions on space requirements is that there are a lot of different things that go into it.. There are different techniques you can use to get by with less space, not just beak trimming. If you use your coop for a safe place to lock them up at night and they have other space available during their waking hours, 2 square feet per chicken in the coop will be plenty. No beak trimming required. Your management techniques count a lot. It does not really matter if that space is in the coop, coop and run, coop and free range, or they free range and sleep in trees.

I'll include a write-up I did a while back on space requirements for chickens. It is just my opinion, not something derived from an advanced degree in Poultry Science. It does not hurt my feelings at all if somebody disagrees with some or all of it. I will mention the more space I give them, the less I have to work. Think poop management, for example. I firmly believe the less often I need to clean out the coop, the better.



1. Personal space for the birds. They have different personalities and different individual requirements. Some are very possessive of personal space and some can share.

2. Access to feeder and waterer. The general recommendation is that they all be able to eat at one time, but access to the waterer is also important. Part of this is that they seem to like to all eat at once but not necessarily drink at the same time. Part of it is that a dominant bird may keep others from eating or drinking, especially with limited access.

3. Being able to put the feeder and waterer where they will not poop in it when they roost.

4. Roost space. They not only need to have enough room to roost, they need to have enough room for them to sort out who gets to sleep next to whom and who gets the prime spots. They also need enough room to get on the roosts and get off them. When they get on, they may jump from some midway support or fly directly to the roost, but either way, they like to spread their wings. And some chickens seem to enjoy blocking the entry points if there are limits. And when they get off, mine tend to want to fly down, not jump to a halfway point. They need room to fly down without bumping into feeders, waterers, nesting boxes, or a wall.

5. Poop load. The larger area they have the less often you have to actively manage the poop. They poop a lot while on the roost so you may have to give that area special consideration, but mucking out the entire coop can be backbreaking work plus you have to have some place to put all that bedding and poop. In my opinion, totally cleaning out the coop is something that needs to happen as seldom as possible.

6. How often are they able to get out of the coop. The more they are confined to the coop, the larger the personal space needs to be. The normal recommendation on this forum is 4 square feet per full sized chicken with a minimum of 10 square feet of run per bird. This additional requirement outside is sometimes not mentioned. How often they are allowed out of the coop may depend on a lot more than just weather. Your work schedule, when you are able to turn them loose, what time of day you open the pop door to let them out or lock them up at night, all this and more enters into the equation. The 4 square feet recommendation assumes they will spend extended time in the coop and not be able to get in the run. What that extended time can safely be depends on a lot of different factor so there is no one correct length of time for everyone.

7. Do you feed and water in the coop or outside. The more they are outside, the less pressure on the size of the coop.

8. The size of the chicken. Bantams require less room than full sized chickens. This has to be tempered by breed and the individual personalities. Some bantams can be more protective of personal space than others, but this is also true of full sized breeds.

9. The breed of the chicken. Some handle confinement better than others.

10. The number of chickens. The greater the number of chickens, the more personal space they can have if the square foot per chicken stays constant. Let me explain. Assume each chicken occupies 1 square foot of space. If you have two chickens and 4 square feet per chicken, the two chickens occupy 2 square feet, which leaves 6 square feet for them to explore. If you have ten chickens with 4 square feet per chicken, each chicken has 30 unoccupied square feet to explore. A greater number also can give more space to position the feeders and waterers properly in relation to the roosts and provide access. I’m not encouraging you to crowd your birds if you have a large number of them. I’m trying to say you are more likely to get in trouble with 4 square feet per chicken if you have very few chickens.

11. What is your flock make-up. A flock with more than one rooster may be more peaceful if it has more space. I don't want to start the argument about number or roosters here as I know more than one rooster can often peacefully coexist with a flock, but I firmly believe more space helps.

12. What is the maximum number of chickens you will have. Consider hatching chicks or bringing in replacements. Look down the road a bit.

13. Do you want a broody to raise chicks with the flock? A broody needs sufficient room to work with or you risk problems from other chickens.

14. The more space you have, the easier it is to integrate chickens.

I'm sure I am missing several components, but the point I'm trying to make is that we all have different conditions. There is no magic number that suits us all. The 4 square feet in a coop with 10 square feet in the run is a good rule of thumb for a minimum that most of the time will keep us out of trouble, but not always. I do believe that more is better both in the coop and in the run.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

We have a 4X4 coop, nesting box attached to outside. We keep up to 7 chickens in it. That's only 2.25 sqft per bird. They only use the coop to roost at night and pass through to nesting box to lay. They have an 8X4 run- under 3.5 sqft per bird. When little forage in late fall to spring and no snow for boundaries we keep them in the run for most the day so they don't escape the fences and wander the neighborhood. They do well with this set up. I'm expanding, adding a movable 4X8 hoop run to give them more room for those days of little forage until our 6 ft wooden fence is completed around entire yard. The 4 foot netting fence only slows them down. In summer they will stay in yard if let out at noon.

 

[mstricer]

My coop is 8 x 8 which is 64 sq ft, I currently have 20 birds. I usually have more. In all the books I read they say 2 sq ft per a bird and 10 sq ft in the run. My girls free range all day. A lot of folks say 4 sq ft or more. But this is the only place where I've read it. Just my opinion.

 

[missydcpc]

My coop is 12x18 was supposed to be 16x20, so I have room to expand. I will have 33 LF in th e coop, and my 3 seabrights have their own cage. My run is a "hallway" 6x16 and then an open area 46x16 (yes it's big). I'd love to let them free range, but this is my compromise.

 

[Nslangton]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate it. As far as the free ranging goes, every person I know with chickens around here has lost their flocks a million times. The chickens might like to free range all day, but I'm sure they don't enjoy getting picked up by hawks, owls, eagles, etc. Minks are not nocturnal they sunbath at our creek daily in the warm weather and love chicken. My neighbors have had total losses due to foxes, coons, skunks, coyotes, possums, minks, weasels, and everything else around here. So I am very nervous about leaving them free range when I cant supervise them. We also have over a hundred thousand in landscaping that takes a ridiculous amount of time up keeping and the chickens will destroy it. They will get treats daily. The coop has 3.4 square feet per bird and the run 12 square feet per bird, so they won't be smushed. I feel the birds are lucky to be here because their alternative was a mass production egg facility and we all know the horrible conditions in those places.

 

[ragerkid2]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate it. As far as the free ranging goes, every person I know with chickens around here has lost their flocks a million times. The chickens might like to free range all day, but I'm sure they don't enjoy getting picked up by hawks, owls, eagles, etc. Minks are not nocturnal they sunbath at our creek daily in the warm weather and love chicken. My neighbors have had total losses due to foxes, coons, skunks, coyotes, possums, minks, weasels, and everything else around here. So I am very nervous about leaving them free range when I cant supervise them. We also have over a hundred thousand in landscaping that takes a ridiculous amount of time up keeping and the chickens will destroy it. They will get treats daily. The coop has 3.4 square feet per bird and the run 12 square feet per bird, so they won't be smushed. I feel the birds are lucky to be here because their alternative was a mass production egg facility and we all know the horrible conditions in those places.

I agree with you. They will be happy birds. I think you will do fine!!!

 

[devora]

As far as the free ranging goes, every person I know with chickens around here has lost their flocks a million times.

I feel the birds are lucky to be here because their alternative was a mass production egg facility and we all know the horrible conditions in those places.

Absolutely! If it isn't safe and you're not comfortable w/ it, free ranging is by no means necessary. Sounds like you are in a wildlife heaven, which can be a bit of a hell for ranging chickens, I guess! Good luck w/ 'em and good on ya for caring about them so much!