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Demarvell
Chirping
Great answer! I'll figure it out. I'm in Idaho Falls, Idaho area. Right now it's freezing. Zone 4 to 5How hard do you want to work? Where are you, what kind of climate are you dealing with? Your goals, flock make-up, and management techniques play a part. By the way, I picked up that you were talking about the run, but the coop size information is helpful. I would have asked. Chickens don't think of space as coop versus run space but the two together and how you manage them is your space system.
The 4 square feet in the coop with 10 min the run per chicken works pretty well provided you have a handful of chickens already integrated and no more than one rooster provided that run space is available in most bad weather. If you integrate chickens, have multiple roosters, or have broody hens raise chicks it can get small fast.
You'll see a lot of discussion on run maintenance on this forum. If your run stays relatively dry that maintenance drops dramatically. If rainwater runs to that area and stands you are almost certain to have issues. It can stink and be unhealthy. So the location of your coop and run can make a difference in regard to drainage. Not so much on size but how hard you have to work.
Chickens poop a lot, day and night. At night they are not moving around so it's concentrated under the roost. But during the day it gets spread out. The more room they have the more it gets spread out. If weather keeps them in the coop a lot you may be managing the poop in the coop a lot. If your run is small you may be managing that poop a lot. With a larger run they can distribute the poop more so you may be managing it a lot less.
Some chicken parasites can live and be transmitted in chicken poop. A small parasite load is usually not a big problem, it's when the numbers get large that you have issues. Some of us don't have these parasites present to start with, lucky us. But if you do, the thicker the poop builds up the more likely the numbers of these parasites are going to get out of hand. In a 40 or 60 square feet run it's doable to manage the poop. When you start getting into a few hundred square feet of run it is more work. If it is kept dry this is usually a lot less of an issue.
One way chickens have learned to live together in a flock is that in case of conflict the weaker runs away and stays away. So they need room to get away and avoid. If you have a handful of chickens that 10 sq ft rule doesn't give you much room for that, but that's why I said no integration, no broody hens raising chicks, and no multiple roosters. There can be exceptions, especially when they are going through puberty, but without those factors there is usually little reason for conflict. So flock make-up and how you manage them can be a big factor in how much room they need in the coop and in the run.
You've probably done the math. Your 8x8 coop does not meet the "rule" for 4 sq ft. for 20 chickens. If you follow the link in my signature below point 10 sort of addresses this. The more chickens you have the less room per chicken you need from a behavioral standpoint. That doesn't let you off of the hook though, again climate and how you manage them play a part. If they are not trapped in your coop by weather much and you don't keep them locked in there much during their waking hours you'll probably be OK but you may need to get up early to let them out or use an automatic door. Also, the quality of what room you have, coop or run, can make a difference. The objective is not to give them so many sq ft per chicken, it is to enable them to get away and avoid if there is conflict. If they have things to hide under or behind, or a way to get over the others out of range where they can be pecked the quality of your room can go way up. Feeding and watering in widely separated sites, especially out of line of sight of each other, can help. An 8x8 building doesn't give you much room to do that but opposite ends of a run or one feeding station in the coop and one outside can help.
To me this implies that you may be thinking about a fixed run plus having movable electric netting. That's pretty much what I have. My main coop is 8x12. I have a fixed covered 12' x 32' run that is predator resistant and over 3,000 square feet inside electric netting. My over-winter flock is one rooster and 6 to 8 hens but in summer it swells to over 50 chickens, mostly chicks growing to butcher size. I have a couple of other 4x8 shelters some of them can sleep in when it gets crowded in the main coop. I still violate that 4 sq ft rule in the coop but that is mostly chicks. I have the climate where mine can be outside all day practically every day so the poop gets spread out and I have very few behavioral issues. The grass stays green except for winter. In a 10 sq ft per chicken run you'll soon be down to bare dirt. I have droppings boards under the roosts. At peak season I scrape them once a week, in winter that sometimes is less than once a month. I clean the bedding out of my coop once every three or four years, not because I have to but because I want that stuff on the garden. I never clean bedding out of my run.
My coop and run are very easy to maintain, I have very few integration or behavioral issues and (mainly by luck) I've never had any with worms. I very much believe the more room they have the better, coop and run. That doesn't mean the 4 + 10 doesn't work, it can. But you may need to work a little harder.
I'm not going to give you any suggestions as far as run size. I wouldn't even if I knew a lot about your climate, goals, flock make-up, and all that other stuff. I believe the more room I can reasonably give them the easier it is on me and the better it is for them. But we all need to find our own way. Good luck!
