Roosting Bar Design - Is it okay?

[newchickychick]

So tomorrow is the day we build the roosting bars to attach to the walls of the coop! They'll be attached to the studs of the walls to make sure they're EXTRA extra secure with extra support on both sides. I know the drawing is a really poor visual of it, but I'm hoping I can explain my idea well enough to make sure it's good enough for our chickens.

- We will be using 2 x 4's, around 10 feet long each attached to the walls along one of the long sides. Flat is better for chickens, yes? We wanted to double check this was a good material.
- We were thinking the first 'bar' should be 6" off the ground as we have silkies or in case of potentially injured/whatever else chickens. Just to be certain if there is ever any need for a chicken to not have to jump high - not to mention I had read silkies tend to need lower bars? The highest would be 48" but does the highest need to be higher? Should we add additional rungs? We plan to have ~80 chickens by the end of culling any that are aggressive cockerels or cockerels we don't have room for (we do plan to keep at least 15 hens per roo) Granted, that's just the average maximum we ever intend to have in there.
- The entire building is 30' x 15'. So is 10' long roosts with four levels enough for potentially 80 chickens? Or would we need more? We are happy to make it as BIG as needed to make our clucks happy!
- We plan to have the roosts 'outwards' by each tier, further out the lower down they are like a leaned ladder to avoid higher levels pooping on lower levels. How far ahead should each be separated if this idea is okay?
- We also of course plan to have some form of poop board behind/beneath just to keep an eye out for concerning poops. Is that the reason people do poop boards? I realized as I was typing this I wasn't 100% sure, but it was my assumption upon reading about folks' poop boards.
- We will have extra supports through the length of it to give it extra security to attach it to the wall. The last thing we want is for a heavy few clucks to pick the top and it to fall.

I just wanted to triple check this plan was decent before going ahead with it tomorrow! It's the final countdown and I'm doing interior while hubby's wrapping up and doing the roof! Is there anything important I've missed even if the design itself is decent?

Poorly drawn mock-up;

 

[Intuit]

So tomorrow is the day we build the roosting bars to attach to the walls of the coop! They'll be attached to the studs of the walls to make sure they're EXTRA extra secure with extra support on both sides. I know the drawing is a really poor visual of it, but I'm hoping I can explain my idea well enough to make sure it's good enough for our chickens.

- We will be using 2 x 4's, around 10 feet long each attached to the walls along one of the long sides. Flat is better for chickens, yes? We wanted to double check this was a good material.
- We were thinking the first 'bar' should be 6" off the ground as we have silkies or in case of potentially injured/whatever else chickens. Just to be certain if there is ever any need for a chicken to not have to jump high - not to mention I had read silkies tend to need lower bars? The highest would be 48" but does the highest need to be higher? Should we add additional rungs? We plan to have ~80 chickens by the end of culling any that are aggressive cockerels or cockerels we don't have room for (we do plan to keep at least 15 hens per roo) Granted, that's just the average maximum we ever intend to have in there.
- The entire building is 30' x 15'. So is 10' long roosts with four levels enough for potentially 80 chickens? Or would we need more? We are happy to make it as BIG as needed to make our clucks happy!
- We plan to have the roosts 'outwards' by each tier, further out the lower down they are like a leaned ladder to avoid higher levels pooping on lower levels. How far ahead should each be separated if this idea is okay?
- We also of course plan to have some form of poop board behind/beneath just to keep an eye out for concerning poops. Is that the reason people do poop boards? I realized as I was typing this I wasn't 100% sure, but it was my assumption upon reading about folks' poop boards.
- We will have extra supports through the length of it to give it extra security to attach it to the wall. The last thing we want is for a heavy few clucks to pick the top and it to fall.

I just wanted to triple check this plan was decent before going ahead with it tomorrow! It's the final countdown and I'm doing interior while hubby's wrapping up and doing the roof! Is there anything important I've missed even if the design itself is decent?

Poorly drawn mock-up;
View attachment 4144768

While I didn't do the math, you'll need 1 foot of roosting space per bird. Minimum 12 inches from the wall. As for the spacing of the boards I'd do minimum of 10 inches.

 

[newchickychick]

While I didn't do the math, you'll need 1 foot of roosting space per bird. Minimum 12 inches from the wall. As for the spacing of the boards I'd do minimum of 10 inches.

80 feet I can definitely do to start to plan for our intended max! (I think 4 square feet per bird, we'd have room for 112? But we'd never ever want to go above 100 and that's presuming they all get along well, AND the enclosed run will be at least 10-15 square feet per too) The long side is 30 feet so we were thinking 10-12 feet of boards, then several layers so there'd be options. BUT that being said, if everyone for example likes the 'top bunk' we'd have enough space to do a second set along that long wall.

12 inches from wall, thank you! I had forgotten it needed to be that far from the wall, I was thinking about half that. Oops! Thanks so much on the spacing correction. This is our first ever coop build and definitely first roosting bar build, so I'm super nervous about messing it up.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Might need supports in the center since a 10' span is significant, but I'm not an expert on that sort of thing.

As far as spacing, if you have some standard birds as well, you're going to want a minimum of 12" from the wall on the back roost and 14-16" horizontally between roosts to prevent picking issues. I think your roost heights are off too - assuming a 45 degree angle which would be typical for a ladder roost, you won't be going 6, 12, 24, 48... the lower roosts would be too close together and I think you'd end up with birds fighting over the top.

Realistically you won't be doing poop boards (though I've seen some very creative set ups) due to how deep this would be as well as how low the lowest roosts are. Try mocking this up to scale and looking at it from the side - in order to do a poop board you'll need to be able to reach all the way in with a scooper to clean it, and I don't know if a 4' deep poop board that's tiered to fit the super low roosts is very practical.

 

[newchickychick]

Might need supports in the center since a 10' span is significant, but I'm not an expert on that sort of thing.

As far as spacing, if you have some standard birds as well, you're going to want a minimum of 12" from the wall on the back roost and 14-16" horizontally between roosts to prevent picking issues. I think your roost heights are off too - assuming a 45 degree angle which would be typical for a ladder roost, you won't be going 6, 12, 24, 48... the lower roosts would be too close together and I think you'd end up with birds fighting over the top.

Realistically you won't be doing poop boards (though I've seen some very creative set ups) due to how deep this would be as well as how low the lowest roosts are. Try mocking this up to scale and looking at it from the side - in order to do a poop board you'll need to be able to reach all the way in with a scooper to clean it, and I don't know if a 4' deep poop board that's tiered to fit the super low roosts is very practical.

This is so helpful, thank you! We do plan to have supports in several spots along as they will be long! The last thing we need is for it to crash down. Poor chickens!

Is there a good “safe” distance to avoid picking with the varying heights to be aware of? I definitely want to avoid potential picking as we’ve got some Polish and will end up with at least 15 more crested chickens by the end of June. We’re adding lots of “boredom breakers” to the coop too, like a handful of other fun perching spots as well as places to break line of sight and to hide under (without being able to get stuck under it).

 

[newchickychick]

Might need supports in the center since a 10' span is significant, but I'm not an expert on that sort of thing.

As far as spacing, if you have some standard birds as well, you're going to want a minimum of 12" from the wall on the back roost and 14-16" horizontally between roosts to prevent picking issues. I think your roost heights are off too - assuming a 45 degree angle which would be typical for a ladder roost, you won't be going 6, 12, 24, 48... the lower roosts would be too close together and I think you'd end up with birds fighting over the top.

Realistically you won't be doing poop boards (though I've seen some very creative set ups) due to how deep this would be as well as how low the lowest roosts are. Try mocking this up to scale and looking at it from the side - in order to do a poop board you'll need to be able to reach all the way in with a scooper to clean it, and I don't know if a 4' deep poop board that's tiered to fit the super low roosts is very practical.

Ignore the last message. I read it as 14-16” long for roost bar sizes. Not sure how. Thank you again! I’ll mock it up tomorrow and post the prototype here for more feedback.