20 Chicken Coop: Essential Guide for Building a Spacious and Comfortable Home

You’ve got 20 chickens - but where are they going to go?!

A regular chicken coop won’t be a viable option, meaning you need a special chicken coop for 20 chickens. You’ll be happy to know this isn’t out of the ordinary, so it’s fairly easy to buy or build a 20-chicken coop.

Below, I’ll cover everything you need to do before you build a spacious and comfortable home for your chickens. All of your burning questions will be answered, leaving you with the best chicken coop around!

Determining the ideal size for your chicken coop

First of all, when you have 20 chickens, you can’t force them inside all the time. You need a chicken run attached to your coop, which eats into the size requirements.

With that in mind, this chicken coop size calculator indicates 3 to 5 square feet per chicken is a good size for your coop. As far as the run is concerned, allow 10 square feet per chicken.

Based on this, and assuming your chickens are average size, you’ll need a 60-100 square feet chicken coop for 20 chickens. This also means a 200 square feet chicken run area to let them roam around.

For bantam chickens, the size is considerably smaller at only 2 square feet per bantam chicken.

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Designing your chicken coop for 20 chickens

Next, think about the design of your chicken coop and run. With 20 chickens, you have lots of options available. Some of the more popular ones include:

• Chicken tractors - this includes a coop with a ramp leading down to a run area. The run also goes under the coop and the whole unit has wheels on the back so it can be moved around.

• Chicken arks - highly popular to save space. The coop sits atop a run area below.

• Walk-in chicken coops - probably the best for 20 chickens as they allow the most amount of space. You can walk into the coop via a door, tend to the chickens, and then walk outside to a large run area.

If you need some inspiration for 20-chicken coops, there are some great designs on Etsy to look at. These plans can be purchased too, so you have details on how to construct them and what materials you need.

Filling your chicken coop

Your chicken coop for 20 chickens will need plenty of things to create a comfortable and welcoming home.

To start, you need:

• Litter materials for the floor - hay or straw are fine here, or you can use any old dried leaves that have fallen from trees

• Nesting boxes - all experts recommend one nesting box per 3-4 hens. For 20 chickens in a coop, 5 or 6 boxes will be fine to accommodate everyone

• Nesting box materials - your nesting boxes must be lined with materials so the hens are comfortable and can be encouraged to lay eggs. They must also prevent the eggs from cracking. At Roosty’s, we have washable nesting pads that are perfect for this job and can be reused again and again

• Feeding stations - every chicken coop and run needs some feeding stations for your flock. This includes waterers to keep them hydrated and feeders for them to peck at grains, etc. We have a DIY chicken feeder port kit and some waterer cups that’ll come in handy here

That’s all there is to it. The main task is to determine the size of a chicken coop for 20 chickens. As mentioned above, it should be anywhere between 60-100 square feet, with an additional 200 square feet for a chicken run.

Look at design inspiration online before buying chicken coop kits and building the structure for your lovely chickens!

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