Coops for ten chickens, and the coop that is sold for exactly ten

Ten is where this site’s standing observation about capacity claims becomes hardest to argue with. Two different makers sell a coop stated for ten chickens. Both publish enough dimensional information to check the claim. Neither claim survives the check, and the coop that does clear it is the one sold for fifteen.

The target for ten birds

Thirty square feet of coop is five feet by six. A hundred square feet of run is ten by ten. At this flock size the run is more than three times the coop, and that ratio is the thing to notice: at ten birds the expensive part of the build is not the coop at all.

Three coops, divided by ten

OverEZ Large — the only one that reaches the figure

Seventy-four by sixty inches, stated for fifteen chickens. Read at ten birds instead, its published exterior footprint gives 3.08 square feet a hen, which lands on the bottom of the published 3-to-4 range. That is the only coop covered anywhere on this site that reaches the published minimum at a double-figure flock. Five lockable nest boxes covers twenty to twenty-five birds at the published ratio, so boxes will never be the limit, and the 20-inch by 43-inch man door means you service 30 square feet standing up rather than crawling.

The honest downside: 3.08 is an exterior figure and the interior is smaller by the thickness of the walls and the nest-box bump-out, so the true number is probably just under the minimum rather than just over. No published interior area, roost length, weight or warranty term. And it is a permanent building — a prepared level base, probably a setback-rule check, and no possibility of moving it once the flock is in.

OverEZ Medium — stated for ten, sized for six

The published exterior is 50.25 by 52.5 inches: 18.32 square feet, 1.83 a bird at the stated ten. Three nest boxes, two roosts, a screened window that opens and closes, and two vents at each gable end — a genuinely unusual amount of published ventilation detail for a coop at any price, and ventilation is what actually prevents winter frostbite.

The honest downside: the ten-bird claim is 61 percent of the published minimum on the most generous possible measurement of the coop. Read it as a six-bird coop and it is a good one; read it as a ten-bird coop and you are overstocking by a wide margin. No interior floor area or roost length published, which is the pair of numbers the claim would have to rest on.

Omlet Eglu Pro — the most checkable, the most overstated

Omlet publishes what almost nobody publishes: 58 by 33 inches of interior, 13.29 square feet, plus adjustable ventilation on this model alone in the range and two removable droppings trays. It hoses out. Everything about the daily chore burden is better here than in a wooden shed.

The honest downside: 1.33 square feet a hen at its stated ten is the lowest figure on this page and 44 percent of the published minimum. Omlet’s design assumption — attached run, permanently open, coop used only for sleeping — is a coherent one, and this site has said so on every page the Eglu range appears on. But ten birds is where the assumption is doing the most work, and the winter week when the run is snowed in is when it stops holding.

At ten birds the run is the build

A hundred square feet of run is ten feet by ten. Fenced in half-inch hardware cloth, with an 18-to-24-inch apron laid flat around the perimeter, and covered overhead if you have hawks. That is a substantial structure and it is where the money and the weekend go.

It is also non-negotiable in a way the coop is not. Birds can tolerate a tight coop if they are only in it to sleep; they cannot tolerate a tight run, and a flock of ten with too little outdoor space is where feather picking and bullying reliably show up. The published 10 square feet a bird is a minimum rather than a target.

Overhead cover is worth calling out separately at this flock size, because ten birds in one place is a more attractive target than three. Predator-proofing goes through why netting or wire over the run is both the effective answer to a hawk and the only legal one — hawks are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and shooting one is a federal offense.

Ten birds with no run access is a shed, not a coop

Every figure above assumes the birds get outside daily. Oregon State University Extension publishes the alternative in EC 1644: at least 3 square feet per bird with run access, and 8 to 10 square feet per bird without it.

The practical consequence is that at ten birds the run stops being an amenity and becomes structural. If there is any chance of the flock being shut in for a stretch — deep snow, a bird flu advisory, a spell where you are away — the coop has to be sized against the higher figure or the birds are in a space the published guidance says is inadequate.