How many chickens?

[Lucas]

I recently had to give up my flock due to a mycoplasma infection caused by purchasing an unsuspectingly infected hen and I am planning on establishing a new flock but I am unsure of how many hens exactly I could keep (ideally as many as possible).

I recently completed the construction of a 40 square foot raised chicken coop which has three 6ft long roosting poles and 4 nesting boxes with a 400 square foot run.

I am planing on purchasing an incubator to hatch a batch of chicks but need to know just how many chickens my coop and run could fit as I am unsure.

What are your thoughts?

 

[chrismahon]

Taking each element in turn:-
The roosts would be good for 24 at 9" of perch each.
The run would be good for 33 maximum based on 2 square metres minimum each, so lets say no more than 30 and 20 would be far better.
The floor space of the coop doesn't mean much in practice as they just need room to fly up and down to the perches and they don't all do that at the same time, but I'd say 20.
The 4 nest boxes, based on our current 5 hens fighting over 3 are only suitable for 6. If you stretch to 10 you will have to make sure the boxes are emptied of eggs frequently because they will fight over them and eggs can get broken. Any more than 10 and you will have more problems than I'd be able to handle!
The main point here is hatching your own. It will need to be done in one hatch, otherwise there will be major flock mixing problems. Normally there will be 55% of males to 45% females in a hatch. That's an average over many hatches and you might be surprised by what you end up with. In our case we had 11 cockerels and one pullet in the first hatch, then 10 pullets and 2 cockerels in the second. Standard incubators normally take 24 eggs, so that will give you 11 hens. But you are quite unlikely to get a full hatch anyway. My advice is to incubate a full 24 and see what you end up with. Remember you have to deal with the cockerels, because you can only keep one. Rehoming more than one or two is unlikely, so be prepared. If you end up with far too many hens I'm sure they will be easy to re-home. We have taken many surplus hens in the past, but very few cockerels.

Let us know how things go.