What size does my run need to be for 14 chickens?

[JLS]

I have 14 chicks. When they go outside I want them to have a fenced in yard. At first I didn't think I needed to fence in the top. But last week a friend of mine, who has had chickens for years, had a preditor climb over the fence into her coop. What ever it was, it killed her rooster and the brooding hen!

So I dont want this to happen to my babies. Now I need to figure out how big their run needs to be. (Before I was going to have it very large because it was going to be open at the top.) Any suggestions?

 

[Mahonri]

10 square feet per bird is optimal. Mine do fine in a much smaller space.

You can make it longer an skinnier...easier to put something on top.

Oh, and it's ALWAYS better if you can stand up in it.

 

[ging3rhoffman]

They say 4 to 10 sq ft per chicken. My run is 8 ft x 22 ft for 15 chickens. You dont want to crowd them or you can start having problems. We used galvinzed rabbit wire for our run because the chicken wire doesnt keep predators out. We have a top on our run also. In the evenings i let my chickens out to play for an hour or so before dark, i sit out in a lawn chair to watch over them.

 

[Intheswamp]

Wait a minute. I must have dozed off somewhere or something.

I thought 10 sq ft per bird was *minimal*.

????????????

Ed

 

[TXmom]

My covered run is almost 200 sq ft for 13 birds, it's adequate, but I still feel like it's small-ish. I let mine "free range" in a fenced in yard for part of the day....the yard is 40' x 70'...much more than 10 sq ft per chicken!

 

[socks]

Hi, yes my understanding is that 10 sq. ft. outside space is minimum (4sq. ft for coop space) unless perhaps they are free ranging a lot and on another page someone pointed out that long and skinny won't give you as much sq. footage as squarish i.e. assuming your birds are normal size (not banties) they would need 140 sq. ft. so you could get 144 sq. feet by 12. ft by 12 ft. but if you wanted to only make it 8ft wide you would need it to be 18ft. long.

o.k. I admit I am a newbie at this and am quoting what I have read from others and math is one of the mystical arts I don't actually understand

but somehow it seems as if you would be using more fencing materials with a long narrow run.

and yes, from everything I'm reading you want a securely (not netting) covered run.

 

[Chick_a_dee]

My run is 12x12 and we have 15 chickens.

 

[Big C]

lenght x width is square ft.
The same amount of fencing materials would be required to cover the same amount of area in any given configuration.

 

[TXmom]

Quote:
I'm sorry...but that's not quite true. The more square it is, the less fencing you'll need. Longer rectengular runs will need more fencing for the same square footage.

Examples (I picked easy numbers, not real):

20' x 20' = 400 sq ft.....perimeter = 80 ft of fencing

10' x 40' = 400 sq ft.....perimeter = 100 ft of fencing

 

[k2chickens]

gosh...im going to have 10 to 12 chicken's and my run is 10 ft long by 5 ft wide. " 5 ft tall"

Will that be too crowded???