Will this run be big enough?

[Krischick23]

Hello everyone! My name is Kristen and I am new here. Me and my husband just bought our first chicks about a week ago. They are almost four weeks old and are Buff Orpingtons. We have 5 of them. Anyways I was wondering if a 30 sq ft run would be large enough for the five of them if in the evening for a couple hours I let them have free range of my backyard which is very large. Our coop is 20 sq ft. Thanks for any replies!

 

[Judy]

If you could possibly make it bigger, I would.

 

[Krischick23]

Thank you for your reply. If it were up to me I'd want it to be bigger as well but my husband is the one building it and he is so hard headed! I am trying to convince him to make it 50 sq feet but he won't budge. Maybe I can change his mind but if not would they just be terribly crowded? I want them to be comfortable.

 

[karlamaria]

That could be 1 ft by 30 ft, 5 ft by 6 ft, 3 ft by 10 ft or any other dimensions that multiply out to 30 square feet

I have 5 girls, we have a 10 by 10 by 10 by 10,( we use a dog kennel ) and a 5x6 foot coop. we know now its really not enough room so we are paying for a new run, and some alterations on the coop. the new run will be 10 by 15 ft , thats 10 feet wide, by 15 feet long. If I was smart I would have saved my self almost 600.00 and never bought the dog kennel and got a real pen made . if you want the girls to be happy, all penned up then you will have to make it bigger so they have room to play roam etc. other wise I think any animal penned up in to small of an erea does not mentally fare well. even if you must make it the 10x 10x 10x 10, it will be big enough, we are just not going to let the girls run loose this summer as it was to messy and the dogs eat the poo. we are making the pen much bigger for this reason.

 

[Spangled]

Thank you for your reply. If it were up to me I'd want it to be bigger as well but my husband is the one building it and he is so hard headed! I am trying to convince him to make it 50 sq feet but he won't budge. Maybe I can change his mind but if not would they just be terribly crowded? I want them to be comfortable.

They could be terribly crowded ... it will depend partially on their personalities. They could start feather pecking which may in time lead to full blown cannibalism. Just a worst case scenario that won't be helped much by letting them out to run around the backyard in the evening. A bigger run to start with, so that they don't get on each others' nerves, is easier than dealing with troubles later.

Also, speaking of comfort ... who is cleaning the run? A tiny run is very difficult to clean. It becomes a worse job to clean than it needs to be. Will the shovel fit in there? I learned the hard way with a run that is only 4 foot tall. It's really uncomfortable crawling around in that run. More than just one door on the run makes life easier on the person doing the cleaning and feeding also. We usually end up moving it twice a year (the run is built separately and attaches to the coop for easy moving. Oh, duh, I just realized that I could just pull back the run and clean the spot every so often and then re-attach the run.)

Also, the feeder and waterer and dustbathing box will take up space in the run. Can you talk him into a few more feet in length for those items?

I'm trying hard here to not be a Daphne Downer with a bunch of negative comments because that's actually not my purpose. It will work out. You will be able to make your chickens happy. They adjust really well to all sorts of coop and run combinations.

Plus, chances are that you will end up wanting a couple more chickens next spring, too.

 

[jamband]

why not just let them in the yard and forget the run construction?