I am SO glad I found this forum. Everything is so useful that I have read. Helping us newbies keep it real is the most valuable thing here I believe.
As much as I would like a buncha breeds; nope, not gonna. Think I will stick with one M A Y B E two (people keep recommending Leghorns. Then I found out about brown ones, yeah baby). I had firstly decided upon Rainbow breed.
Thanks for this useful information. Gonna add it to my list of reference material.
Very helpful. Especially saying that breeds, individuals and flock dynamics do make a difference. Mentioning future plans, like adding chicks (quarantine or natural breeding) too. You might even want 2 setups for that.
On a forum in the Netherlands they advice slightly different rules of thumb.
If you have little space, its best to have only one friendly breed.
First 2 chickens need a minimum of 7m2 run space. The third another 2m2 more. The fourth, fifth etc. 1m2 more.
For happy chicken and a low maintenance run you double the minimum run space.
Very thorough with adjustments for all situations. I have 7 mongrel 'garden' chickens and 3 big fat Orpingtons. I had to take down a divider between 2 nest boxes to accommodate hens that cover a 9"x15" area when sitting! They're all in the coop at night & free range all day, with access to the coop. The 'jardineros' like to roost in trees during the day if it's hot. Over the past 9 months I've made a few changes to the coop to make life easier for them, especially in width of ramps in the coop for the Orpingtons.
Great article. I have a solar door so they come out at dawn and are in their coop at sunset. It works great and you don’t have to be there exactly when they wake up as they have come out on their own.
A very good, and well thought out article. I tend to want to give my chickens and ducks more room than they need. I wake up at 6am every morning to let them out and put them all up whenever the sun goes down. I take care of my birds because they take care of me.
Hi! I know this is an older article, but this makes me feel more confident. I am going to have 13 chickens in a 8 by 5' space (40') I have a few bantams, and one big bird (a Brahma) so I was getting worried, as people said at least 4' per hen, and they would have about 3'. But now if I think about it, they will 27' of extra space, so that seems ok. Anyway, thank you!
I was told that I was giving my chickens too much room. However, they cannot always free range( a family of foxes and a couple of coyotes). So I fenced off a 30' X 30' area. Maybe overkill, but my 9 chickens seem to love it. So, I agree, more is better than less.
Good article. Now I feel more comfortable with my set up. My birds are out free ranging all day. I’ve recently added more perches as the flock nearly doubled this year with those broody hens.
Having an electronic door really makes life easier especially in the mornings. I still check nightly to make sure everyone got in.
thanks so much.
