# Chicken Coop Size Calculator

Created by Kenneth Alambra
Reviewed by Wojciech Sas, PhD and Jack Bowater
Last updated: Feb 02, 2023

This chicken coop size calculator will help you approximate the minimum chicken coop size for any number of chickens using the recommended coop space per chicken for regular- and bantam-sized chickens. Find out how big a chicken coop needs to be to make your chickens happy, whether you plan to let them stay in it or roam around outside the chicken coop during the day.

Knowing how much coop space a chicken needs is essential before building a chicken coop. Please note that the square footage calculation this tool provides is only for the coop space. The results do not include the run space and yard area, which are areas you can be generous with regarding your chickens. Keep on reading to start learning.

🔎 If you want to keep other farm animals, such as cows, horses, or sheep, you can check out our round pen calculator.

## What is a chicken coop?

A chicken coop is where the chickens go to roost or sleep at night. The coop is also the perfect location to install roost bars for your chickens to perch on while resting and the best place to put nesting boxes for your hens to lay eggs. The chicken coop also acts as protection against predators, harsh weather, and extreme temperatures during winter and summer. Some poultry suppliers offer ready-to-install chicken coops, but you can also build or repurpose an old shed to get the most out of your cost to build a DIY shed.

Chickens are curious creatures, and they love roaming around, pecking whatever they find interesting to them, whether it be the wood shavings or mulch covering the ground or the feeds you give them. So, the chicken coop size must be large enough for your flock to be happy. In the next section, learn about the key points in determining how much room chickens need 🐔.

## How big does a chicken coop need to be?

The following factors affect how much coop space chickens need:

• Coop space per chicken; and
• The space they will frequent during the day.

You would want to provide your chickens with a healthy space to live in. However, you also don't want to end up building a huge coop for your chickens because that could turn out to be expensive. Let's now learn how these factors influence the size of a chicken coop space.

If you plan to let the chickens spend most of their day in the run space, which is a roofed, fenced area for your chickens, it is recommended to provide the chickens with at least 4 square feet of floor area per regular-size chicken and 2 square feet for each bantam-size chicken. Bantam-size chickens are about ¹/₄ to ²/₃ the size of regular-size chickens. Since they are smaller than regular-sized chickens, they need a smaller area than the standard-sized ones.

If, instead, you plan to keep the chickens inside the coop during most of the day, the coop needs to have a larger area: at least 10 square feet of floor area for each regular-size chicken and 4 square feet for bantam-size chicken. This larger area would then allow the chicken to run around even without an actual run space.

On the other hand, if you plan to let the chickens free-roam around your yard, you can build a smaller coop for your chickens. The coop will then be mostly used for chickens roosting at night, and it can be as small as 3 square feet of space for each regular-size chicken and 1 square foot for the smaller bantam-size chickens.

Here is a tabulated version of how to find how much coop space per chicken:

 Space the chickens will frequent during the day Recommended minimum coop square footage per chicken Regular size chicken Bantam size chicken Coop 10 4 Run 4 2 Yard 3 1

Make sure that, even though we've determined the recommended space in units of area, the chickens also have a reasonable amount of headroom for our chicken coop to have proper ventilation and not overcrowd the space.

✅ Do you love chicken eggs and want to perfect your hard-boiled eggs? Our egg calculator can help you with that! 🥚

## How do you use our chicken coop size calculator?

Our chicken coop size calculator is straightforward to use. All you have to do is:

• Select the type of space your chickens will frequent, especially during the day;
• Enter the quantities of your chickens; and
• Our calculator will instantly provide you with the recommended coop size, ensuring the proper space per chicken 🙂.

Let's jump to the next section and look at a computational example to see how it works in practice.

## Sample chicken coop size calculation

Figuring how big a chicken coop needs to be is very simple, and you can actually do it easily yourself. Let's say you plan to have 10 regular size chickens together with 12 bantam size chickens in a flock, and you want to provide them both with a coop and a run space during the day. Since they will most likely stay around the run space during the day, we know from the last section of this text that it's recommended to provide 4 square feet per regular-size chicken and 2 square feet per bantam-size chicken. We then have to multiply the quantity of each chicken size by the recommended area, so we have:

$\footnotesize 10\ \text{regular-size chickens}\times 4\ \text{ft}^2 = 40\ \text{ft}^2\\[0.5em] 12\ \text{bantam-size chickens}\times 2\ \text{ft}^2 = 24\ \text{ft}^2\\$

Add these areas together to have:

$\footnotesize 40\ \text{ft}^2 + 24\ \text{ft}^2 = 64\ \text{ft}^2$

So based on our chicken coop size calculation, your chickens will be happy with their coop if you build it with at least 64 square feet of floor area.

🙋 You can also enter this floor area to our mulch calculator to find how many bags of mulch you need for your lovely coop.

## FAQ

### What size of a chicken coop is for 10 chickens?

At least 100 ft² is the minimum recommended chicken coop size for 10 regular-size chickens if you plan to keep them in the chicken coop for most of the day. However, if you plan to provide them with a run space, you can provide them with only at least 40 ft² of chicken coop space. This becomes at least 30 ft² if you'll let them free-roam around your yard during the day.

### How many square feet per chicken in a coop is recommended?

It is recommended to provide at least 10 ft² per regular-size chicken or at least 4 ft² per bantam-size chicken for their coop spaces. These spaces would allow them to comfortably stay inside the coop, even for an entire day. If you have the option of letting them go out of the coop during the day, you can provide them a smaller coop space of at least 4 ft² per regular-size chicken and 2 ft² per bantam-size chicken.

### How much space does a chicken need in a coop?

If you plan to let your chickens go outside the coop during the day, you can provide a regular-size chicken with at least 3 square feet in a coop or at least 1 square foot per bantam-size chicken. These space requirements would be enough to give each chicken room to move around comfortably with other chickens.

### Can I put ducks in my chicken coop?

Yes, you can. Make sure to give around 4 to 6 square feet of coop space per duck that you have. However, you don't need to worry about their sleeping space as they don't roost like chickens. So, during the night, if the ducks decide to sleep (as they are nocturnal birds), they would have the entire floor area themselves to choose a spot to sleep on.

Kenneth Alambra
During the day, where are your chickens mostly?
Coop
Number of regular size chickens
Number of bantam size chickens
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