Quick question - do you count the exterior nesting box for sq footage?

[CautiousVenturer]

Thanks for taking a moment to answer my quick question! I'm looking at prefab coops (i know, i know), and as expected they're all ridiculously small for the amount of birds they say they'll hold. When calculating the capacity of a coop, do you count the interior square footage of the nesting box towards the overall square footage of the coop before dividing by 4, or do you go strictly on the main coop area?

Thank you!

 

[Clay Mudd]

Main coop area -- how much floor space the have to move around in.

 

[AtholCoop]

Personally speaking no. The nest box shouldn't be counted towards your overall square footage. Honestly if you are that close to the line in terms of square footage versus number of birds you need a larger coop.

 

[Hawkeye95]

Thanks for taking a moment to answer my quick question! I'm looking at prefab coops (i know, i know), and as expected they're all ridiculously small for the amount of birds they say they'll hold. When calculating the capacity of a coop, do you count the interior square footage of the nesting box towards the overall square footage of the coop before dividing by 4, or do you go strictly on the main coop area?

Thank you!

as everyone else said-- definitely not. This is a good rule of thumb for many reasons. There will be times you'll have your birds locked in the coop. This winter, I had my birds locked in their coop on two separate days all day long. (extreme weather conditions) Most of the winter wasn't severe enough to do that. Anyway, regardless of what your reason is, there may be times your birds will be locked in. You don't want them killing each other if they can't walk around and get away from each other. The nest boxes don't count since they won't be in there unless laying. It is FLOOR space only.

Just keep that in mind and you'll be fine, even if you go with prefab.

 

[CautiousVenturer]

Thanks for the input! When you're looking on such small scale, the nest box can be like 50% of the main area dimensions.... That would be the difference between 6 ft sq or 9 ft square....