What do you wish you knew before you built your coop and run?

[EmmaDonovan]

I wish I'd known to put a sheltered table/workspace near the coop and run. I have one now. It's so handy for preparing food/treats, treating ill or injured hens, doing small repairs and cleaning and other projects. It's under a tarp so it's protected from sun and rain.

I also wish I'd built for atypical weather conditions. We had a tornado last summer that destroyed nearly everything (the flock was okay). Tornados almost never happen here but it only took one to lose our run and all of our hard work. We're rebuilding and adding multiple deep cement anchors this time.

What do you wish you knew before you built your coop and run? What changes have you made?

 

[ChickenShepherd_6116]

I wish I made my coop bigger and walk-in. Now I am short on coop space :/ Always go bigger than you think you need!

 

[WingItRanch]

Yeah... I wish I had triple the size. I'm working on expanding now. I had heard about chicken math but thought it was a joke. Turns out it's not...

 

[MommyGirl]

Also wish I knew about chicken math. I have added on 3 times in 5 years. So definitely go BIG

 

[perkolator]

Not that we sell, but I wish I knew the price of eggs was going to skyrocket and I’d probably have built much bigger and let chicken math happen

 

[Sally PB]

I wish I made my coop bigger and walk-in. Now I am short on coop space :/ Always go bigger than you think you need!

We added on to the coop twice, and it's really as big as it can get. I could add onto the run, possibly. I wish the coop were bigger, but it's not possible. Building a new/another coop is not going to happen.

Absolutely make the coop/run tall enough for you to stand up in! Your back and even the top of your head will thank you!

I wish we had known more about ventilation, and put some in the very top of the roof. As it is, we can't modify it without taking the top of the structure off, and that is not going to happen.

 

[Iluveggers]

My human run door pushes inward, which I love…but I would have put a 2 in board at the bottom and started the door higher. When it drops to freezing temps I have to make sure the area behind the door is low because a frozen poop will block the door from opening sometimes, or a dirt pile that slowly grows. It’s hard to shovel it down when the ground is frozen. I am proactive about it now but in the beginning I panicked a few times when I could only open the door a few inches before it hit a frozen and unmoving poop pile.

 

[Jen-the-Hen]

Yeah... I wish I had triple the size. I'm working on expanding now. I had heard about chicken math but thought it was a joke. Turns out it's not...

Now for the Newbies...what exactly is "chicken math"? By the comments I'm guessing "2+2=6 or 8"? Am I on the right track??

 

[mtnlady621]

My coop is 11' x 23'. No problem with space or standing up here. BUT I wish we had put a wood floor in, as when we have torrential downpours, the floor get very muddy with puddles and the pine shavings don't soak it up. I dislike having to shovel it all out , and pray it will dry enough to put fresh bedding down. It's a lot!

 

[WingItRanch]

Now for the Newbies...what exactly is "chicken math"? By the comments I'm guessing "2+2=6 or 8"? Am I on the right track??

Oh yeah. So let's say you want 4 chickens, right? Then when you order, you realize there's a limit of 6. Or maybe you notice one lone chick left in the bin. What's another 1 or 2? Then you hear about the blue egg layers. You'll just get a couple of those to add to the colored basket. Then you start selling eggs and realize you need more chickens because the demand is high.

Next thing you know you have 18 and people are calling you the Crazy Chicken person.