The Coop Planning Kit

What's inside

1. The four numbers. Floor, run, roost and vent area per bird for standard, bantam and heavy breeds — with the reason each one matters.
2. Sizing worksheet. A fill-in table that takes you from flock size to buildable dimensions, next to a worked example, and a dimensioned section diagram showing where roosts, nest boxes, vents and the pop door go.
3. Specification checklist. The eight predator details that actually matter (hardware cloth gauge, apron width, latch type…) and how to ventilate without draft.
4. Before you spend. The decisions to settle first, and a materials checklist to take to the lumber yard.

Why we made it

Nearly every problem new keepers post about — pecking, smell, frostbite, hens sleeping in the nest boxes, a raccoon getting in — traces back to a decision made before the first board was cut. Almost none of them are fixable afterwards without rebuilding.

So the kit is deliberately not a how-to-build guide. It's the planning stage that the build guides skip, in a form you can print and take outside with a pencil.

Written and published by FlockSavvy. Figures follow the ranges used by US extension services and long-standing keeper practice; sources and reasoning are shown on the page rather than asserted.