# Ideas for 50+ bird barn?



## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

My wife says I'm allowed to build a new coop for our ever-expanding flock. I've found a place in the garden that will fit a coop that is about 8-10' wide and can be as long as I like, up to about 60', but more realistically about 20-30' would probably be enough. I'm thinking about a plain old barn about 10' tall at the apex of the roof with a bit of a terrace at the front (our chickens love to roost on our terrace) and plenty of roosts and nestboxes inside. Am I missing anything? Our birds are free-range, the temperature here never drops below 25C/80F and the main predators are eagles, monitor lizards, dogs and human thieves (a tiger has been spotted in our village in the past year but she prefers calves).

I don't know how many chickens I want (other than a lot!) but I imagine I'll have to stick to a couple of roosters or so, a dozen or so laying hens plus their chicks up to about 6 months.

Our hens are super-feisty when they have young chicks. Should I divide the barn into compartments each with their own entrance or just leave them to it to sort out their own pecking order?

Any suggestions, ideas or insights before I get started?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

That's a tough one for those of us that don't have game birds. 90% of the time we can let our birds intermingle even if chicks are involved. 

Maybe think about how you can put up temporary dividers if there is trouble in the coop and little peeps are present.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I’ve talked my wife into agreeing to 10’ x 40’! Theoretically that should be enough for about 100 friendly hens. How many gamebirds I can fit in there is another matter. (My wife is also insisting on building another barn-type building for storing her boxes of old clothes plus al-fresco cooking and dining. Of course, once we build our brick house we’ll no longer need this space for ourselves and it will eventually be overrun by chickens!)


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Brick house first. Coop issue solved. 

I know that doesn't fix things right now but it is an option. 

Sorry, couldn't resist.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Brick house after our baby is born. My wife is allergic to spending money and the costs involved in building a brick house (30’ x 75’, potentially two levels), will induce my wife to give birth early. The costs of building a couple of wooden barns here is chicken feed compared to that. And we already have willing craftsmen who want to prove their worth (for the prize of building the brick house).


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Brick house first. Coop issue solved.
> 
> I know that doesn't fix things right now but it is an option.
> 
> Sorry, couldn't resist.


See, you've got to watch out for Robin!


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> That's a tough one for those of us that don't have game birds. 90% of the time we can let our birds intermingle even if chicks are involved.
> 
> Maybe think about how you can put up temporary dividers if there is trouble in the coop and little peeps are present.


Yes, maybe keep it flexible, but definitely plan for compartments.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Biring said:


> I've talked my wife into agreeing to 10' x 40'! Theoretically that should be enough for about 100 friendly hens. How many gamebirds I can fit in there is another matter. (My wife is also insisting on building another barn-type building for storing her boxes of old clothes plus al-fresco cooking and dining. Of course, once we build our brick house we'll no longer need this space for ourselves and it will eventually be overrun by chickens!)


10 x 40 or 50 is the size of the old style farm commercial coops here in Ohio, before the big contract meat and egg producers came in with the multi-thousand bird operations.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

If you get into raising/selling more specialized/valuable birds you may want to have some netted runs.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

May


Biring said:


> My wife says I'm allowed to build a new coop for our ever-expanding flock. I've found a place in the garden that will fit a coop that is about 8-10' wide and can be as long as I like, up to about 60', but more realistically about 20-30' would probably be enough. I'm thinking about a plain old barn about 10' tall at the apex of the roof with a bit of a terrace at the front (our chickens love to roost on our terrace) and plenty of roosts and nestboxes inside. Am I missing anything? Our birds are free-range, the temperature here never drops below 25C/80F and the main predators are eagles, monitor lizards, dogs and human thieves (a tiger has been spotted in our village in the past year but she prefers calves).
> 
> I don't know how many chickens I want (other than a lot!) but I imagine I'll have to stick to a couple of roosters or so, a dozen or so laying hens plus their chicks up to about 6 months.
> 
> ...


Maybe those Raptors in the picture will eat the Monitor Lizards!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

I've come up with a rough sketch of the floor plan, and views from the west, south and north. It will sit on concrete posts about a foot or so above the ground to avoid floods. The walls (shown in green) will be woven bamboo sheets, which cost about $3.50 per 2m x 2m sheet. Our chickens all seem to want to roost on our terrace so the plan is to give them three terraces of their own, plus three 2m x 2.5m coops.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Well, the green sheets are easy to figure out. What is the upper diagram? Is that individual pens? 

Is the blue rectangle the birds' special terrace? And what are the grids in between the green sheets?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Yes, the top diagram is the floorplan showing the individual pens. The blue rectangle is the roof. The grids between the sheets are terraces. So reading from left to right it’s pen, terrace, pen, terrace, pen, terrace.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

That seems like a pretty cool idea. The whole thing will be a foot off the ground?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Got it. I like it. It looks like it's going to provide good air flow for them. And they have their private terraces.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

Yes, best to have it raised as the annual rainfall here is about 10’ and we get some pretty spectacular storms. A few months ago a neighbour downstream blocked the main drainage channel to divert water into his paddy fields and forgot to unblock it before a rainstorm. As a result our whole property was underwater for a few hours. Fortunately our house is raised off the ground but our poor muscovy duck was not so lucky. The eggs she’d been brooding for almost a month were all killed. She was pretty despondent for a week or two after that.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Wow, that is a great deal of rain!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Dang, is a foot enough? Chances are the whole village will be checking to make sure the guy with the rice paddy doesn't forget to unblock the drain again.


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

A foot will be enough! The location of our potential new barn is partially to stop people entering our property to fish in the publicly-owned drainage channel on our boundary. My wife pointed out that they could just hop from one side to the other and bypass our potential barn. I said the obvious solution is to build a second barn that’s 10’ x 100’ to block off the whole boundary. She agreed! So I could be getting an even bigger barn once the first one is finished!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

LOL You can't argue with a solution like that.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

If you have access to the materials, that would be a good plan!


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)

The most expensive part will be the floor as it needs to be strong enough to hold several people plus up to half a tonne of rice. I think a strong floor will probably work out at about $1.50 per square foot. All in all, maybe $2.50-3.50 per square foot, so a 1,000 sq ft barn will not be cheap. We’ll build the 400 sq ft barn first and see how it goes!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

A half ton of rice? How do you secure that from rodents?


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## Biring (Sep 24, 2020)




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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Well, that would do it. The only thing I've had chew through my plastic bins have been squirrels.


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