Our current coop and run house just 2 birds -- one cockerel (Earl) and one pullet. Both the coop and the run are very small, and there will not be room there for our 17 babies, who are currently about 2 weeks old and will be ready to leave their brooder soon.
Here's my coop idea: We have an old hay shed near where our small coop is. It has three sides, a roof, and a floor. The floor needs some repair, but everything else is still solid, and it's perfectly dry inside. So we'd just need to build a front on the shed, fix the floor, add a door and hopefully a window to let in some light, and they'll all have a safe place to stay at night. Some roosts, some nest boxes, food and water...and it'll be home.
My first question: Will a 12' x 12' coop be big enough for 19 chickens? It's about 6' tall at the back and about 8' tall in the front.
The "chicken section" of the yard is already fenced in, and is mostly grass but has some trees (pine, oak, maple, sweetgum). The fence is 10-yr-old twisted wire fence, rusty in places, but the posts are still solid and it's been dog-tested daily since last summer. It's mostly 2x4 wire but some of it is 6x6, and there are 2 gates for easy access. If we check the wire for breaks (and re-staple it to the posts where needed), and then line the entire thing securely with 4' high chicken wire, we should have a pretty good pen for the chickens to wander in during the day -- right?
This leads me to my next question: is 130' x 70' a big enough run for 20 chickens? Is it too big? I envision it as being a semi-free-range sort of thing, if that makes any sense. We'll need about 400 feet of chicken wire total, but still cheaper and easier than building a whole new pen. We could even keep the existing small coop and pen in there for an infirmary if needed.
My last question (for now): Can you experts think of anything I've overlooked?
Here's my coop idea: We have an old hay shed near where our small coop is. It has three sides, a roof, and a floor. The floor needs some repair, but everything else is still solid, and it's perfectly dry inside. So we'd just need to build a front on the shed, fix the floor, add a door and hopefully a window to let in some light, and they'll all have a safe place to stay at night. Some roosts, some nest boxes, food and water...and it'll be home.
My first question: Will a 12' x 12' coop be big enough for 19 chickens? It's about 6' tall at the back and about 8' tall in the front.
The "chicken section" of the yard is already fenced in, and is mostly grass but has some trees (pine, oak, maple, sweetgum). The fence is 10-yr-old twisted wire fence, rusty in places, but the posts are still solid and it's been dog-tested daily since last summer. It's mostly 2x4 wire but some of it is 6x6, and there are 2 gates for easy access. If we check the wire for breaks (and re-staple it to the posts where needed), and then line the entire thing securely with 4' high chicken wire, we should have a pretty good pen for the chickens to wander in during the day -- right?
This leads me to my next question: is 130' x 70' a big enough run for 20 chickens? Is it too big? I envision it as being a semi-free-range sort of thing, if that makes any sense. We'll need about 400 feet of chicken wire total, but still cheaper and easier than building a whole new pen. We could even keep the existing small coop and pen in there for an infirmary if needed.
My last question (for now): Can you experts think of anything I've overlooked?
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