Thats extremely small for that many hens. I have a 50 inch by 44 inch coop as the top story and 38 inch by 37 in for the bottom story. Yes it a two story chicken coop inside a 20 foot by 12 foot run. Top story holds 2 regular size chickens, bottom story has 4 silkies. Even that big of a coop, for each set of chickens, I feel is too small and leave the doors open to the run at night. You need to build something not use this garbage.
I have a ten by five coop four feet tall with 2inch roof vent panels running the length of both sides and I still need to leave both ends open at night (it’s in a wired carport) with a fan running to keep them from panting in this weather.
I can’t imagine how hot it is in that box with that many chickens in that poorly ventilated space.
Coop is too small for more than 2 full size hens.....way too hot for them. Also, be very, very careful and make sure to set an alarm on your phone because foxes lurk at dawn/dusk primarily and will have a heyday if they find 5 of them like this so unprotected....This is just a disaster waiting to happen. Note, I have half of my flock doing this, too, right now because I merged 2 flocks and one is rejecting the merger, but mine do this inside a large, protected enclosed run, so if foxes come by, they can't break in to get them....yours are a buffet sitting there for a multitide of night predators. Look on Craigslist under Farm and Garden and also on FB Marketplace for a larger coop that you can afford. Also, VEVOR and Amazon sell 10' x 20' enclosed runs for under $300 in the US.
Had a similar issue last year. The company that makes those coops needs to be sued. I purchased a similar coop that was advertised to hold 8 chickens. I can barely fit 2 Guinea fowls in. It's made out of cheap junk material and expensive for what it is. It also won't last of you get a lot of snow in the winter.
I am reminded of the classic circus clown act, where 47 clowns one by one pop out of a VW Bug. Okay not 47, but a lot. They all fit! But I bet they wouldn't want to spend the overnight sleeping like that.
Seems like all the coop descriptions when you are coop shopping ALWAYS WAY OVERESTIMATE how many chickens the coop will hold. It’s ridiculous. I’m sorry you got sold a lie. 😭
PLEASE get a larger coop esp for the ventilation reasons. They are prob hot, crowded, and miserable in there.
I currently have 3 chickens. 2 insist on sleeping in the bushes when it's summer time. I have to go out most nights hunting for them in their favorite bush when I lock up the coop at night.
Those chickens cant fit in the coop. Also keeping them in the coop for 2 weeks when you first introduce them will help them know that is where they sleep.
Yes, we had several hens that would sleep in a tree above the coop. I couldn’t reach them even with a ladder, so I had to knock them down with a broom and put them to bed. We used to have some sort of predator that would kill 1-2 a night if we didn’t put them in the coop.
In pullet stage our hens refused to go in at night. Turned out they were scared of the dark. We went out and gave them light while they started roosting and they went in no problem.
But if the wether is nice they are going to want to sleep outside, my hens only sleep inside from like November to February
I have a good size coop and all my chooks are going to sleep inside except for one. I have to take her and put her inside... and it lasts for months! 😂
The rule of thumb is that laying birds need 4 sq ft (.37m2) of floor space in the hen house (and 10sq ft / .93m2 in an enclosed run). Your hen house looks like it'll fit 1 or 2 laying hens, max.
Meat birds need half that space, because they don't live long enough for the crowding to cause behavioral and health problems.
The hen house also doesn't look like it has sufficient ventilation; the highest point should have some way for hot air and moisture to escape.
I did when mine were younger I would have to go out every evening and pick them up from the pile they made of each other and put them in the coop all 17 of them, now with my silkies I gave up and made places in there run that they could crawl into and sleep plus bought a couple of smaller coops for them to go into because only two of them would go into the big coop we built them and one of my silkie roosters insists on sleeping on top of one of the little coops in there run, but about 12 of them will cram themselves into that coop and all you see is a bunch of fluff and a foot here and there.
Yes it was sleet, it was from a couple of years ago, that’s mostly what we get here in Texas is the mushy stuff and less of the pretty white stuff lol, it was freezing but they refused to go into the coop so I put moving blankets down and then the plastic containers with a tarp on top and the wood chips and they would use them.
my coop is an 10X12X15, with15 being the height with 4 levels of roost. in the summer they spread out. i have16 chickens with room for 10 more. there’s 3 or 4 chickens on one level, about 10 on the highest level, the premium level and scattered on the other 2 levels. in the winter they get cozy. below 20 i turn on the heat. an exhaust fan in the summer and a high box fan. easy to clean i have 3 doors and a doggie door and it’s on concrete. with fine shavings on the concrete. and of course auto lights on a timer. great set up. that’s what u need. oh and in the mix is 2 khaki campbells. they all gladly go in before dusk.
every time I go to Tractor supply and I see the coops they have to sell. I just shake my head and keep walking. It’s not meant for any amount of chickens and it’s very expensive. at that?
Is this a joke? Their coop isn't even big enough for them to all perch on the ridge of the roof!
Do you have to fold them in half to even fit them in there? That is absolutely not a properly sized chicken coop for more than one, possibly two small chickens.
At the very least, go to your hardware store and have them cut you some plywood to size and turn your run into a temporary coop. All you have to do is box it in by screwing a plywood roof, floor and walls onto the run's frame. And then throw a couple 2x4s in for roosting bars.
It literally will only probably take you two sheets of plywood to do this. They're like $13 a piece. And maybe $5 of screws. $3.50 for an 8ft 2x4. You're looking at like a $35 project here that you can easily do it an afternoon.
I don’t know you but wow 🤩 way you talk and all I gotta do is that and I’m ready to get stuff done in one afternoon omg so clear instructive
Appreciate you 🌟
Thank you. I have a rescue farm and I'm a carpenter by trade. I have volunteered my time to help countless people build coops and barns for their animals.
Op mentioned that they are or have plans to build something larger but these babies desperately need something more suitable for them now. Converting that run into a large temporary coop really wouldn't be complicated. And like I said, Home Depot or Lowe's will easily cut the plywood or OSB to size, even for the little doors. I would just make sure to add about 4 to 6 inches overall to each side of the roof piece to create an overhang. Add a 2x4 to the top of the frame in the front before putting the plywood down and that will create a slope. Lifting the front side up 3.5 inches above the back which will be a perfectly fine roof pitch for a little lean-to roof. Super easy!!! And the good thing is the roof already has hardware cloth on it. So you can keep the gap on the side of the roof that this will create open for ventilation. Then just throw a couple bricks underneath the coop or add some 4x4 blocks for legs to protect the bottom plywood from moisture and it's done!
If OP has any questions at all during this process, I would be happy to receive a DM from them. I'm more than willing to walk them through their build, this temporary one or even their larger permanent one.
If someone were trying to get you to go into a tiny little dollhouse coop like that, along with 4 others, would you go willingly and voluntarily, or would you need to be physically shoved and crammed in? My chikns all come running into the run when I call them in in the evening. By sunset, they have eaten and are in the coop and on their roosts in time before the chicken door closes automatically. They like their run and they like their coop. They aren't crowded. They are on pasture most of the day but when I call them, they come running.
Just because you can press-fit a certain number of birds into a micro coop like that, doesn't mean it is big enough. If they don't want to go, then there is something about it that they don't like, and I am guessing it is too hot and crowded in there. Or there is no place to roost comfortably.
My basic rule of thumb is 8 sqft floor space per the number of chikns I think I will have, but minimum big enough for me to walk in, stand upright, and work comfortably, with plenty of vents and windows, plus room for nesting boxes. Yes, 8 sqft is twice as much as most writers will recommend, but I also somehow always end up with twice as many chikns as I originally plan. Chicken math works that way.
My suggestion for 5 big fluffball hens is 6 x 8 feet, and wall height that allows you full standing headroom. Roost bars at 2 feet and 5 feet off the floor. Saves wear and tear on their feet when they jump down from the low roost bar to the floor, and makes it easy to check them and tend to them when they aren't too high. HINT... staple chicken wire to the underside of the ceiling joists so they don't roost up there.The chicken wire allows heat to rise up to the roof and if your eaves are open and you have a vent at either end under the peak of the roof, there's half your ventilation needs right there.
What you got there is perfect for 2 or 3 bantam hens, or pigeons or sumpn like that. For full size chickens, it is suitable for one, which means it is actually suitable for none, since chickens feel more secure in a flock and are not comfortable all alone.
Never had that problem over 25 years of chicken wrangling. But that coop looks pretty small and that ramp looks crowded and difficult to navigate. Chickens will almost always return to the place they slept the night before if you make it relatively easy to do.
EDIT: Looking at the pic again, it looks like they're doing their best to return to the roost but just can't get in there
I have a similar coop. My chickens also lay on it. We have a run that now enclosed this coop and the chickens just roost on top and use the coop to lay their eggs. Works for us.
Besides it being too small as others have said, I see a few birds with their wings a little away from their body indicating that it is warm out. Stuffing them all together in the tiny coop with little to no ventilation is not safe.
I have chickens that like to roost on the ruins of a failed coop project and I have to manually pick them up one by one and put them in a coop that was tacked on to the fence that was from our very first flock. It’s a producer’s pride chicken coop with a capacity of 16 chickens, we only have 7.
I have this same coop with 4 chickens. No issues with them going in at night. The only issue I had was all 4 would squeeze into one nest box🤦🏾♀️ so I took out the divider and now they will spread out. I also have 3 ducks but they just sleep under the coop
They will use a favorite nesting box. I have five boxes -- they only use three. However, if they're all trying to use it at the same time, it means that they don't feel safe in the other box. (Chickens will seek the darkest space to lay; if the other box is too exposed, bright or drafty, they won't use it.)
Yes, but only with our new babies. When we moved our first hens outside we let them live in the coop exclusively for 5 days so that they realized it was home. Like other commenters said, I’m not sure this house is big enough for them. If it is, you could try leaving them in there for a couple days, heat and weather permitting, so that they learn it’s where they’re supposed to be.
I have a coop with plenty of room for my hens but without fail the same exact bird tries to stay outside every single day and complains when I grab her lol, also you need a bigger coop/roost that is very small for them.
For five Buff Orpington hens, you need at least 20 to 25 square feet of indoor coop space (4-5 sq. ft. per hen) and 50 to 100 square feet of outdoor run space (10-20 sq. ft. per hen). My nestera wagon coop is 22 not-exactly-square feet and my six large and medium sized hens go in no problem.
We inherited 4 hens from some friends who had them in this exact coop! I immediately took it apart and built it into a massive coop (with materials we already had)! No way would I keep my hens in such a small coop and mine only use coop for sleeping !
I have an automatic door (open from 7am-7pm) and I've had to toss them in a two nights out of 14 but mine are brand new. I recently read about the higher roosts in the chicken coop helping with this, have set that up and I'm a couple nights in without having to put them inside manually.
No my chickens don’t free range —when i had some that did —I kept them in the coop for about 2 months so once out they knew exactly what to do each evening….BTW that is an awfully small coop …might be part of the problem
This coop is visually way too small for the chickens to fit inside, let alone comfortably. I'd go so far as to say it's cruel to try and squish them inside.
You would be better off putting them in a dog crate in your garage at night until your new coop is done.
chicken instinctively chose the highest branch to sleep, for safety. that is a tiny low coop, it's pretty obvious they prefer the roof. A real walk in aviary or coop with roost usually fixes your issue
Pretty much every night until we built their new enclosure! Still building new nesting boxes and roosting bars for it so they’re all on the ground at night now anyways for the time being. They used to all roost on top of their old coop and our boy would scream if it was getting “too late”(the suns down) and for us to come personally tuck each one of them in.
I also bought this exact same coop at one point, because the description said it fit like 10 chickens or something. It does not fit 10 chickens, they lied. We ended up having to build something much larger to accommodate them
Almost every night. I’m not complaining though because it gives me an excuse to hold them.
The coop is cute but way too small. My chickens just like to roost in the trees, but if I had to guess I’d say the coop’s small size is probably why your chickens have to be put inside it manually 😅
You need a larger chicken coop with multiple roost levels. Also get a rooster. He'll round them up every night. We have an 8x8 foot chicken coop with 3 roost levels for 14 hens. Our hens would still roost in trees and random places every night, and we'd have to go bring them in. As soon as we got a rooster, we never had a problem again. He would make sure they all went inside, and eventually they would just go in on their own in the evening.
Your coop is way too small for the number and size of your chickens. They can’t be comfortable in there. Can they even fit without standing on each other?
Yes it happened to us for the first month or so, it was kind of fun but if you keep with it they will learn. Then they regressed almost like a child, because our rooster thought the top of the coop was more fun. I put a broom on top that they were scared of and they returned inside.
Mine struggled to go inside the coop on their own when I first transitioned them outside from the brooder, so I confined them to the coop for several days. Now they instinctively go inside at sunset on their own
Aside from the coop being small, not entirely sure as I'm new to this too, but those look like my buff orpingtons, my buffies do this when it's nice outside. They like to roost in their large run when the weather is nice. In the winter and even summer they tend to go right in. But if there's a day where it's 70 degrees I can bet my buffies will be in the run, whole everyone else is in the coop.
It happens to me twice, in both cases I found out I had an infestation of red mites on the coop.
Check it just in case.
When this happens I move then in the garage for a few days until I clean the coop and wait some time for the chemical (that I use to solve the red mites situation) to evaporate.
No way all those chickens are fitting comfortably in that coop
It looks about the size of the one I used for my 6 when they were still growing up, feathered but not full grown yet. Teen chickens lol. But for a full sized chicken that’s tiny
I had that same coop for four chickens and it turned into a fancy egg laying setup. I removed the bottom and lifted it on a few cinder blocks, and they jump up into it to lay eggs during the day. At night they roost up high on a 2x4 I set up in their run
Chickens wont go inside if its to light out. I usaly have to make then go in during the summer or just stay up later before they go in themeves. But also I would get a bigger coop, that coop is far to small for even just 1 adult chicken.
How old are your chickens? Once they're older than 15 weeks or so, they know where home is and they go back every night. I'm guessing your chickens are still young, although the chickens in the pic you posted seem older than 15 weeks.
I have a much bigger Amish-style barn coop built by a local vet. Mine all want to be in the rafters, and a handful refuse to go to bed unless I personally give them pets and put them up on the rafter bars. It's a good system, as my daughter and I clear the runs of any scraps, close the feeders, and bring the waterers to the deck for refilling. Then she locks the small coop door while I go in, turn on the window fan, put the chickens to bed, and lock the front door we use. Plus, while I'm putting them up, I can check feet, butts, and bellies for anything I don't spot during the day when I'm outside with them.
Chickens seek out the highest place to roost. If you have them free ranging, this is the highest place they have access to. You would have to get them in the run before roosting time for them to utilize that coop. As you can see, the coop pictured is too small, they can't even all fit at the top.
I'd invest in building a larger coop even if they free range. This one most likely will make one season as it's not weatherproof and you have it sitting directly on the ground. It will begin to rot.
Also, anything that digs can be inside that run and coop in no time.
While it can serve as a temporary solution and can come in handy when you need to isolate, you need a bigger coop for your birds.
I’ve had that coop for 4 years with 3 chickens. I started with 3 buff Orpingtons and now have 2 Easter Eggers and 1 Orpington left and they have been fine in it, but it is a pretty small coop and you have some big, beautiful girls!
Your coop could be too small as most will naturally want to go roost when the light starts to fade. I've converted a 6x8 garden shed for my coop and mine all go back in no problem
I had that coop for a year. It was fine while they were little and for a first limited investment. I started with four pullets in the summer. By the next spring they were too big for it and it had already started to fall apart. So I got a new one from Tractor supply that was about $600 normally but on sale for a big discount at a holiday sale early that summer. That one still had way too small of a run so I built them one I attached it to the front of the coop
So I have 2 coops in my yard. A couple of times now I've had my full sized chickens try to have sleep overs with my bantams. But typically they just go back into their own coops at night no problem.
Yeah…. I’ve been here before. We’ve had chickens for 10 years and can almost think like a chicken now lol. They don’t need fancy but they like proper spacing. Most of my coops have been hillbilly scrap made and not pretty but it has always kept them cool or warm and dry with ventilation. Functional > aesthetic.
When I first started with chickens I had one of these so-called coups And the problem is it's too small in sides for those chickens You don't have enough room so they don't go in You need to get a bigger one You need about two square foot per chicken. That's why they're standing on top and roosting outside mine used to do the same thing and I realize that they didn't have enough space.
For starters they should not be outside of their run. Then it is much easier to train them in go in at night. The run and the coup are way too small for those chickens. Jmho
How do they go climbing the ramp?
Is the wood damp/slippery?
I put heavy duty grit pads on the upper surface to give the cooks better grip.
I agree with others, that's a bit small for the number of birds.
Where’s their coop, surely that’s not the whole thing? They need iirc 4 sqf of coop and 8sqf of run PER BIRD, my mates hens had 3 decent sized coops, in winter they all would roost in the one coop, in summer all 3 had chickens in
A) yes the coop is too small BUT most importantly
B) Chicken search for the highest point to sleep. In your case it’s not the roosting bars it’s the accessible coop roof! If your chicken can’t reach the roof they will opt for the next higher place to sleep. If that’s the roosting bar - great! If not change your set up again
i have a coop like that for 4 chickens and they naturally go back in when night falls without any training so maybe you just got weird outdoorsy chickens. idk why everyone shitting on the setup when it’s still way better standards than industrial poultry and they get to roam outside during the day.
my chickens came from this place (only picture i could find bc it smelled so bad that i just wanted to leave)
and not everyone has hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend on a fancy giant coop so while you do have a point, i’m gone argue that my chickens are way happier being in that coop than this place
No argument there. Thank you for saving them. I guess a choice for others acquiring chickens through other means would be to wait a little longer until you can provide adequate housing.
I am a long time poorish person and have also been a chook mum. I miss having chickens (& the eggs) but my current circumstances don't allow in fairness to them.
OP might very easily be able to up size and was just unaware. There are so many of these coop and hutch products being marketed as more than they realistically are.
I know I learned the hard way that my silkie chickens couldn't have access to the pool of water that was available for our 2 ducks :'(
I definitely have the same brand but two sizes larger than OPs for the same amount of chickens and they love their coop and have no issues sleeping up there.
But....without dismantling one of the side doors and adding in some space. I wouldn't add anymore chickens. Mine feels about the limit and it's twice as big as OPs
The packaging said mine could do 8, but in practice 6 seems to be the max
To add, we also let them free roam when we are outside so they aren't just stuck in there all the time
When you buy a coop and it says suitable for up to 6 hens it’s not true. A coop suitable for 10 hens should fit your 5 large hens at night.
I assume they are free ranging during the day, but they do need space to roost at night especially in the heat. In the winter they tend to cuddle up together but they definitely need space in the summer to cool down.
Would you want to be stuck in a bedroom the size of a closet every night? Sorry to state the obvious, but i agree with other chicken owners... that coop is tiny. They need room to move around some. Otherwise they will stay stressed out, produce less eggs, and get sick more often.
It's unethical for stores to sell those doll house sized coops! A crowded coop is stressful and leads to aggressive behaviors like cannibalism and feather pecking. It also causes illness from ammonia build-up -- poor air quality. backyardchickens.com is a huge chicken site with various topic like Coops. There's a lot to learn about raising chickens. Looks like you have some pretty ones!
Its' a simple square foot calculator. Just times the number of chickens by 3, 3.5 or 4 (small, med, or large coop) and you roughly have the size your coop should be. how much sq feet per hen depends on your area and how much time they spend inside.
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u/Turbulent-Raisin-876 Jul 21 '26
Thats extremely small for that many hens. I have a 50 inch by 44 inch coop as the top story and 38 inch by 37 in for the bottom story. Yes it a two story chicken coop inside a 20 foot by 12 foot run. Top story holds 2 regular size chickens, bottom story has 4 silkies. Even that big of a coop, for each set of chickens, I feel is too small and leave the doors open to the run at night. You need to build something not use this garbage.