Quick help please. Thanks

[Fields]

Hello, my fellow chicken lovers!!
So I have a quick question that I’m hoping someone had nice answer to. Anyways, I’m wanting to raise around 500+ Bielefelders and wondering how much space would be needed for comfy. They’d have a huge state of the arc coops and whatnot , but I just I just need to know how big the Coop should be an how many acres for free range. Thanks! Going big of nothing!

 

[nuthatched]

Holy smokes, why 500?!
Your coop would have to be minimum of 2000 sq feet, and your run would be a minimum of 4000 square feet. Feed costs would be ubsurd.

 

[TheOddOneOut]

Holy smokes, why 500?!
Your coop would have to be minimum of 2000 sq feet, and your run would be a minimum of 4000 square feet. Feed costs would be ubsurd.

Agreed. 500….too much. That’s too big a flock.

 

[TheOddOneOut]

It just wouldn’t work. For their social dynamics at least. Also, I can see oh so many problems that would arise. There’s really no “coop” you can build for that many chickens…It’d have to be a barn.
And how in god’s name would you clean it out, care for the chicken’s medial issues (Oh, they will have them!) and pay for it all?
Have you ever owned chickens before?

I’d recommend you start off with a much smaller flock. Try 25.

 

[Angel07]

Hello, my fellow chicken lovers!!
So I have a quick question that I’m hoping someone had nice answer to. Anyways, I’m wanting to raise around 500+ Bielefelders and wondering how much space would be needed for comfy. They’d have a huge state of the arc coops and whatnot , but I just I just need to know how big the Coop should be an how many acres for free range. Thanks! Going big of nothing!

I’d recommend having a few different coops. Seperate them up a bit. Not sure how big a space. We used to have 400 chooks and they were fine as long as they were in seperate coops.

 

[PippinTheChicken]

500 is a lot, I suggest you start with around 50-100, then you can build it up. You'll need a very large barn, or loads of seperate coops. Feed costs will be huge, will you be making money from the birds?

 

[Windrider]

500! Holy moly!

Well, not that I have personal experience with that many, since my entire urban lot would be needed just for a run for that many birds, but I disagree that it can't be done because I have seen posts on BYC where people are doing it.

Here's a really nice barn coop that houses a little less than 100:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/new-coop-for-90-birds.1463517/

And here's something more in line with the numbers you are looking at:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/raising-400-chicks.1422938/

I don't know that I've seen pics of @The Moonshiner's set-up, but he's got to have at least 500 leghorns, and he can speak from experience about raising and feeding that many birds.

 

[3KillerBs]

At that point you're in commercial chicken keeping territory and should talk to your local ag agency rather than backyarders.