roosting space: how many inches per bird?? Thanks....

[deanna&rich]

Thanks, many thanks to all who have shared your great ideas and experience for building a coop...

I'm almost done building a 4' x 8' coop for my 8 birds, and am designing the roost and droppings boards. Will a 7-and-a-half foot long roost be enough for 8 or 10 birds?

I'm thinking about putting the roost about 4' high so the board will be easy to clean, at about 3 1/2 feet high. (the ceiling will be 7 1/2 feet tall inside).

Right now all eight biddies are sleeping in an extra-large dog kennel, they happily squeeze themselves in when it gets dark out .... it will feel like a mansion when they get their new home in a couple days!!!

 

[azelgin]

8"~10" per bird, so your 7 1/2' will be fine. My chickens can't fly up to a 4' high roost, so depending on your breeds, that might be a problem, without a ladder for them. It would also be a little high for some heavy breeds; they might injure themselves jumping down.

 

[colt1567]

If you are building a nesting box, then i have always heard that a good rule of thumb is one cunic foot of space will hold sometimes up to 4 birds comfortably. i built a large contraotion that has nesting boxes on it as well as a roost for the birds. i just made each box 1' high x 1' Long x 1' deep. for the roost, i actually used bathroom towel holders and i used liquid nails glue to hold them together so they wouldnt spin and then nailed their bases down and they work out great. kind of rambled on, but hope it helps!!!!

 

[gsim]

I have 24 hens, large egg layers, 4 breeds. I have about 16 ft of roost avail, and inevitably about 1/3 of it is always empty. They seem to like to be fairly close to each other. I could do it on 12 ft really. They will pack in really tight when it is colder tho. I have one runt BR that cannot even cluck, just chirps, so I call her chirpy. She always gets the same exact spot every night between two buff comets. Never a variation. Seems I always see the Black Aussies in the same place every night too. Probably all do that.