What do you consider "Not Enough Space"?

[FuzzyButtz]

What do you consider the right amount of coop space, per chicken for:

• Small/Bantams
• Medium Breeds
• Large Breeds

Thanks. I just want to make sure my girls aren't too crowded if I do end up getting more.

 

[Ridgerunner]

As far as I am concerned there are no magic numbers that cover us all. Our conditions, circumstances, climates, management techniques, flock make-up, goals, and who knows what else makes us all unique. How could one magic number work for all of us? I can’t give you a hard and fast number.

I also believe that you are asking the wrong question. Coop space is not really the question. How much total space is available to them and when is it available is a better question. The chickens don’t care if the space is on a coop, coop and run, or they totally free range and sleep in trees.

In northern Alberta you will need to provide more space than I do way down here. My temperatures seldom get much below 0 degrees Fahrenheit and mine go foraging in that as long as a cold wind is not hitting them. I’d expect you to have some days that are a little more severe.

Commercial operations have shown that you can keep them in as little as 2 square feet each. All you have to do is trim their beaks so they can’t eat each other, control the lights food, and their total environment, and have chickens that have been specially bred to take that kind of confinement. I’m not doing that.

I’ll copy something I wrote a couple of years ago about chickens and space. A lot probably won’t apply to your situation but maybe you’ll understand why I’m reluctant to give you a magic number. If you think about them, they break down into three categories: behavioral problems you’ll need to deal with, flexibility in dealing with problems that come up, and the more you crowd them the harder you have to work.

Good luck!

I don’t believe in magic numbers for chickens. We keep them in so many different conditions, in different climates, with different flock make-ups, and use so many different management techniques that no one magic number will cover us all. Some of the things that make up the space requirement are, in my opinion:

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. Each flock has its own dynamics.

2. Access to feeder and waterer.

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 sleep on the roost, they need to have enough room for them to spread their wings and fly to the roost and to sort out who gets to sleep next to whom and who gets the prime spots once they get on the roost. 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. Young chicks need less space than mature adults.

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. In general the more chickens you have the less space per chicken you need. 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. Chickens have developed a way to live together in a flock. It’s called the pecking order. But establishing that pecking order can be pretty violent. One method they use to take most of the danger out of establishing the pecking order is that the weaker runs away from the stronger when there is a confrontation or they just a void the stronger to start with. They need room to run away and avoid.

15. The more space you have the more flexibility you have dealing with problems.

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 that most of the time will keep us out of trouble, but not always. People starting out with no experience with chickens need a starting point. The 4 and 10 is a good starting point. For a lot of us it is more than they could possibly squeak by with but I do believe that more is better both in the coop and in the run.

There are also people that have no trouble with a lot less space. If the coop is used only for sleeping and maybe some nest boxes, you can get by with less. But there has to be additional space available when they are awake. If you commit to giving them that space whenever they are awake, you don’t sleep in any mornings and you have to find someone to let them out at the crack of dawn if you are away for a while.

It doesn’t matter if the space is in the coop, coop and run, or they free range and sleep in trees. It’s total space that counts, not just coop size in isolation.

 

[FuzzyButtz]

I have a 5x4 raised coop within a 12x12 run. I have 2 White Leghorn hens (laying) and 3 Orpington Pullets (will start laying *hopefully* in 2-4 weeks). I'm not interested in getting a Roo at this point, as I feel the coop will be too small if he starts harassing them. I was hoping to get 2 Jersey Giants, but I don't think there will be enough space in the coop at night.

They're locked in the coop roughly 7-8 hours (overnight) and because we're new to this and are still getting to know them, we haven't let them out to free range yet - though we intend to - we have 10 acres.

I work from home, so i'm home most hours of the day to supervise them.

We are building a second coop - a much larger one - to accommodate more chickens, and this coop will be completely cleaned, disinfected and moved to a new plot of grass, to later house 2 small Turkeys (Royal Palms).

I would like to eventually get into hatching/etc, so a large coop will be a 'must'.. but for now, is the coop, with them locked in at night, suitable for the 5? They seem perfectly fine and content with it. I would like to get the 2 GJ's, but once my pullets reach full size - I know it will be way too crowded.

We are hoping to have the second coop built by September at the latest, which will also include a larger outdoor run. It's not uncommon to hit -40C here in the winter for weeks on end. I'm hoping the new coop will be at least 10x6, with a 15x20 run.

I do put a little food & water in the coop at night, but for the most part they primarily get fed outside. They have a large 'bird bath' for water, that they also like to perch on. They also have an outdoor perch, and 2 inside perches across the length of the coop.

So.... basically what I've gathered is - don't get any more chickens yet - and when we build the second coop, build it + the run as big as we possibly can..

 

[Ridgerunner]

It sounds fine to me for what you have. If, and this is a big if, but if you were sure to have that new coop done before your weather turns really rotten, you could probably handle two additional Jersey Giants now. You’d just need to let them out at the crack of dawn. When they are asleep space really doesn’t matter as long as it is dark in there. It’s just waking hours that are important. But schedule is often shaky when building coops.

When you are planning your new coop, I’ll mention that here in the States, most building materials come in 4’ and 8’ dimensions. I don’t know what you have in Canada. If we plan our coop sized around these 4’ and 8’ dimensions, we can often build a larger coop for very little extra money and with less cutting and waste materials. For example, an 8’ x 12’ will probably cost you about the same as a 7’ x 11’ and may even take less work.

 

[FuzzyButtz]

It sounds fine to me for what you have. If, and this is a big if, but if you were sure to have that new coop done before your weather turns really rotten, you could probably handle two additional Jersey Giants now. You’d just need to let them out at the crack of dawn. When they are asleep space really doesn’t matter as long as it is dark in there. It’s just waking hours that are important. But schedule is often shaky when building coops.

When you are planning your new coop, I’ll mention that here in the States, most building materials come in 4’ and 8’ dimensions. I don’t know what you have in Canada. If we plan our coop sized around these 4’ and 8’ dimensions, we can often build a larger coop for very little extra money and with less cutting and waste materials. For example, an 8’ x 12’ will probably cost you about the same as a 7’ x 11’ and may even take less work.

I do agree - I tend to be lazy in the mornings and really should be letting them out much earlier. Up here, it doesn't even get 100% fully dark in the summers, but usually by 430/5 the sun's coming up over the horizon.. must get butt out of bed to let the chickies out!!

The only reason our coop is an odd shape, is because we used an odd shaped pallet for the floor.. Our current coop was 95% recycled wood - pallets, etc. Only things we bought were Plywood and Screws.. though we will be purchasing a bit more for our bigger coop, for obvious reasons. I'd ideally like to go with a 8x12.. i'll just have to talk hubby into it!

I'm hoping to let them free range for the first time tomorrow.. they're really wanting out!

 

[earlybird10842]

To me, too little space is when there's nowhere for a picked-on chicken to go.

 

[Hokum Coco]

Quick answer is you soon know soon enough. Their will be disruption and turmoil in the flock and they will start to cannibalize one another You may have to resort to peepers or clipping the top beak. Standard chicken requires is 4 square feet coop; 10 square feet in run space. If you follow that guide line I think all different breeds will conform regardless of size.

 

[cafarmgirl]

To be honest, I'd keep the flock on the small side until you get the larger accommodations built. While it's true that you might squeeze more birds into the small space you currently have and get away with it... again you might not. The problem is that if you did happen to develop a pecking problem due to crowding/stress, or just having a bossy or bully hen in the flock, sometimes it can be very hard to stop the behavior, even when put into more space. Once they develop that habit and get it into their heads to peck sometimes they just don't stop. I have found it's much better to try to avoid causing the issue in the first place then to have to possibly deal with problems later.

 

[chynasparks]

We just completed our 4x8x6 high enclosed coop run. The upper nest area is 4x3. My 4 peeps just moved on today, yeah! They are 3 months old. Right now they are happy because it took us a month to build and the became cramped in the pen I had them in. I can't free range but I took them out every day in a Peck & Play elclosure. Next on our list is a chicken tractor run so they can get out. We placed the coop on concrete and covered it with sand. I'm a little concerned because I was told at purchase they were a pullets but I have one whom is showing signs of being a Roo. She just be bossy but I'm waiting for the crow. No spurs yet. I don't want to give her/him up and don't want to increase the flock. So if she is a he, will there be enough room for 3 she's and a he.

 

[FuzzyButtz]

Since my previous posts, I got 1 more hen and they now free range the majority of the day, well into the later evening (They put themselves 'to bed' in the coop around 10:30/11 and I go out and lock them in before bed - around 11/1130). Because they now spend so little time in the coop or run, I don't find the extra girl to be causing any issues, though if we did we would certainly do something about it one way or another. They're in the coop 7-8 hrs on average, and free range 15-16 hrs with access to the coop/run still (I just leave it open). They've done wonders on our Grasshopper infestation!

The man I bought my newest girl from told me I could easy fit 20-25 hens in my little coop. Though, I strongly disagree and would never put more than 8-10 at most, in it. I just don't find excessive over crowding to be fair. I fully understand my location's harsh winters and the need for extra body height, but I like my girls to have room to move! Though, that being said we do plan to have the new coop done before winter.