8x4 coop roosting bar set ups

[3KillerBs]

I haven't looked around enough to know if they built any or not.

But if I built a chicken coop of one size, I would be pretty comfortable selling plans to make the "same thing" in other sizes. Photographing one size when selling plans for a different size could be a problem, because you'd end up with confused customers.

So yes, I can see that it's worth looking more carefully, but I don't see the lack of actual photos as a big deal.

I spent too much time working in factories to be comfortable with any product that hasn't been thoroughly prototyped and tested in every variation produced.

Yes, we’re going to do rectangular walls and leave the entire triangular piece on the short sides open so there will be both window ventilation and constant airflow through the very top.

Also not doing all those nesting boxes. I told hubs 3, and we can always add another if needed.

Their run is going to be my old garden which is 20’x30’ so they won’t be as squashed as the run in the pictures.

Excellent to hear!

 

[Matejka]

No photos, but I would either run one roost bar the long way (on the side toward the run, so you can still walk in the door). Or I would run two roost bars the short way, one at least a foot from the far wall and the other at least two feet away from it.

Either way, I would make the roosts removable, so you can lift them out if you need to move freely in the coop (like at cleaning time). U-shaped brackets of wood or metal can make it easy to lift the roosts out, while keeping them secure the rest of the time.

I have removable roosts and I LOVE them. Coop is bigger-8x8, I have 15 birds, never crowded.

 

[David61]

I have a 6x4 roost that can hold 25 birds. I have 15 on it at this time. Here is my build and pic with ten birds on the roost.

 

[Nodakj]

This is the design i went with. Overall i am happy with it. My coop floor is 8×4 and the nest boxes add another foot that i don't include as floor space. I have twelve large hens and the top roost is 7 ft. And they all perch on it with about a foot gap in the middle somewhere most nights. They have never roosted on the lower perch although they use it as a stepping stone to get onto the higher perch. My hens have never gone through a summer yet so they may spread out and use the lower perch when it gets warmer. I went with this design because i have doors at both ends and it makes for easy cleaning.

 

[Nodakj]

For your coop design the perch design i used probably would not be ideal. But my point i was trying to make was if you make one perch long enough your hens could all use it.

 

[Freedomfarmer420]

Welcome to BYC.

I hate to say it, but I hope that you're in the early stages of the build and can do some redesigning because the coop pictured in those plans is very poorly ventilated.

It's also MUCH smaller than it looks because the chickens photoshopped into the picture are shown at the size of robins, not actual hens (think of the size of a hen as a basketball on legs), and the fact that it has too many nests for the number of hens it should hold indicates that the designer probably knew more about carpentry than chickens.

The Usual Guidelines

For each adult, standard-sized hen you need:

• 4 square feet in the coop (.37 square meters)
• 10 square feet in the run (.93 square meters),
• 1 linear foot of roost (.3 meters),
• 1/4 of a nest box,
• And 1 square foot (.09 square meters) of permanent, 24/7/365 ventilation, preferably located over the birds' heads when they're sitting on the roost.

This is a photo of 3 cockerels in an 8x4 space (my brooder), which also shows the roost I use in there when I'm not using it as a brooder. The boys here are just slightly smaller than adult hens of their breed.

You see that I run the roost down the long side, about a foot from the wall.

Here's my article on coop ventilation: Repecka Illustrates Coop Ventilation

Those are sum beautiful chickens