For those who live in the country from early spring to late autumn, it makes sense to have laying hens and enjoy homemade eggs. In summer conditions, it is quite possible to make a simple but comfortable chicken coop.
Design Features
You can order a chicken coop to a carpenter, buy it ready-made or make it yourself. There are many types of structures, from a small portable version to a large-scale structure. When designing a chicken coop, you should choose a warm, but not hot place. The house with nests and perches needs to be raised above the ground, this will help protect the birds from the night cold and dampness.
Mini chicken coops, for several birds, are easily transferred to another place. They can be made in the form of a stretcher, put on wheels or simply moved in parts. Large plots of land can afford voluminous chicken coops with a spacious range. Sometimes bird houses are built on several floors.
Free range chickens are more fun. But whoever dares to release them into the garden will be left without a harvest. The poultry owners found a way out, how to walk up a bird and save vegetables. They build long corridors from the net, in which the birds can leave the chicken coop and enter it from the other side.
With the summer option in the summer cottage, you can not complicate your life at all, make the simplest chicken coop, in the form of a triangle from several sheets of slate, and a small paddock, covered with a net. Those who love complexity can build a beautiful poultry house with a string of houses, windows and flower beds. Or a mini-house for broilers, similar to a real rural hut.
How to build with your own hands
Before you start building a chicken coop, you need to know how many birds will live in it, the size of the future building depends on this. It is quite possible to make a poultry house in the country with your own hands, you just need to follow the step-by-step instructions.
Preparatory work
In any construction, time is needed for preparatory work. This includes: the choice of location, project, materials, preparation of drawings and calculations.
Site Selection
The health and quality of the eggs will depend on the comfortable state of the bird. A correctly chosen place can further affect the egg production of chickens. On a hot summer day, laying hens will be uncomfortable in the sun. It is better to place them under a shady tree. In the morning, the slanting rays of the sun should warm and dry the chicken coop that has cooled overnight, and for this it should be placed on the southeast side of the trees.
It is better to choose a place for the bird away from the garden and vegetable garden in order to eliminate the risks of chemicals entering the room when processing horticultural crops. Sewers, cesspools and compost pits should also not be near the chicken coop and range to avoid infection. If you attach a chicken coop to the cottage building, it is easier to heat it and it is easier to look after the bird. It is impossible to carry out construction in a lowland, since precipitation from the land will drain to the chicken coop.
It is better to plant a hedge around the walking area of the birds to protect them from wind and drafts. The bird can equally suffer from heat, cold and wind, so all these factors should be excluded. To make it easier to control the birds and close them in time for the night, the chicken coop should be visible from the most inhabited places in the country. When the chickens come to rest, you just need to close the door behind them.
Project
Construction should begin with the preparation of drawings and calculations. By this time, the place of construction must be determined, the sketch of the chicken coop is drawn up with reference to the area and cardinal points. It is necessary to indicate nearby buildings and trees, consider the level of shading, the wind rose, and exclude the presence of drafts. You can draw up a drawing of the building yourself, taking into account the characteristics of your site, or borrow it on the Internet.
The building plan should include a place for perches, drinkers, feeders and walking birds. Ventilation and lighting are thought out and designated. If you are planning a winter chicken coop, you should consider the heating system. The dimensions of the building are determined on the basis of: two chickens per square meter plus 30% of the additional area for nests. But in practice, birds are settled in a larger number than required by the regulations.
Construction process
During the construction process, all work is carried out in stages, focusing on drawings and calculations. At the initial stage, the terrain is marked and the foundation is laid.
Foundation
For several layers, you can build a small portable chicken coop, it does not need a foundation. A larger project will need a foundation.
They are of three types.
- Columnar. It involves the installation of pillars and the construction of a structure using frame technology.
- Pile. Piles are used as pillars, which are driven in on unstable soils or on sloping terrain.
- Tape. The most reliable foundation, it is poured with concrete around the perimeter of the entire building.
Simple country options most often use a columnar type of base, it is cheaper and easier to perform.
Along the contour of the future chicken coop, holes should be dug to the depth of freezing. Make recesses with a step frequency of two meters. The support volume will be about 20 cm and rise 40 cm above the ground surface. The formwork can be built from a rough board, 60-80 cm high. Further, reinforce with reinforcement, insert supports and pour concrete. You can start work from any corner of the future building. Cover the poured foundation with polyethylene and leave for a week to dry.
Gender
When the foundation is strong, the basement is tied. To do this, four beams 20 cm thick are laid on the roofing material, creating a box. With the help of metal corners, the bars are fastened together.
Boards placed on edge (logs) are attached to the harness with nails. The areas between them are filled with expanded clay. Then, in order to protect the bird from rodents, the surface is covered with a fine mesh with a half-meter overlap, which will later rise to the walls. A rough board is laid on top.
When constructing the floor, it is better to make a slight slope towards the door in order to facilitate further care of the chicken coop. When working with wood, it should be remembered that all wooden elements must be treated with antifungal and anti-fire agents. Insulate the floor when the walls are already there.
Walling
The erection of walls should begin with the installation of side racks. In order to make a shed roof in the future, the difference between the front and rear pillars should be about half a meter. It is important to remember that the roof slope should not be in the direction of the birds.
Then, with the help of boards, an upper trim is made, they are attached to the racks with nails. Before mounting the crate, you should find out the dimensions of the insulation. Layers of thermal insulation are laid in the gap between the supports.
In the area of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthe door, window, opening for the exit of birds, transverse guides are installed. When the frame is ready, the floor and ceiling are sewn up with an edged board.
Roof
To cover the roof, you need to prepare the rafters. To calculate their size, measure the distance between the front and rear pillars, add another thirty centimeters to the roof overhang.
The rafters, set on edge, are mounted to the upper trim of the building. The distances between the rafters are equal to the width of the thermal insulation. The rafters are covered with polyethylene, they make a crate and mount the roofing.
To insulate the roof, thermal insulation plates are laid between the rafters. In the northern regions, several layers of insulation can be used. A few centimeters of space should be left between the hemming material and the thermal insulation for free air circulation.
Wall coverings
The walls are sheathed after roofing. To the outer side of the frame, bars are mounted to which boards, plywood, OSB sheets are attached, what it was planned to sew up the chicken coop with. Insulation is laid between the racks.
Then the chicken coop is sheathed from the inside. The location of the ventilation holes should be left uncovered.
The device and decoration of the chicken coop
If the walls and ceiling are treated with lime, this will protect the room from parasites.
The floor should be made of warm materials, and cement, ceramic tiles, bricks are not suitable for it. Chickens are prone to rheumatism, if the floor is cold, damp, they sit on their paws and stop walking. Wood is the most suitable material for a chicken coop. In order not to spoil the wood covering with chicken manure, the floor is covered with a thick layer of sand and sawdust.
The roof should not be built from materials that get very hot in the sun or make noise from rain and wind. Chickens rush equally badly both from fright and from overheating.
Ventilation
For solid chicken coops, you can arrange a ventilation duct under the roof. Smaller birdhouses can get by with two shuttered openings on opposite walls.
The best option would be a hood equipped with a fan. To install such a system, two square holes should be made on opposite walls. One of them should be forty centimeters lower than the other. A special fan is inserted into the hole.
Lighting
Chickens do not see well in the dark if they freeze, or get scared, start to hide in a corner and crush each other. In such conditions, it is convenient to have adjustable lighting with a soft switch-off.
Perches and nests
It is more convenient to make perches removable, so it is easier to take care of them, and place them at different heights. A wooden ladder should be brought to the perch; it is a wide board with transverse bars.
It is better to cover the nests with straw and change it periodically. Hay is less suitable, as it rots quickly. Nests should be darkened, hens do not like to rush in bright light.
In the chicken coop, you need to install several wooden perches at a distance of 30-50 cm from each other.
Feeders
Feeders are easy to use if they are made in the form of drawers. Then the feed can be filled up without going into the chicken coop. Feeding troughs are usually knocked together from boards and installed at a low height.
bird walking
The more space for chickens to run, the less the risk of spreading infection. Some owners, with a large number of birds, divide the paddock into sections to avoid crushing. The walking area must be dry, which is provided by sandy soils or a drainage system.
Advice of professionals
For the construction and equipment of a country chicken coop A few tips may be helpful:
- When calculating the area of uXNUMXbuXNUMXbthe chicken coop for the planned number of birds, it is better to make a building with a margin – in the future there may be more chickens.
- If a small chicken coop is being built for several layers, it is more convenient to put it on wheels. This will help to move the house without problems, and the chickens will always have a fresh pasture.
- A winter chicken coop needs solid materials (brick, stone), they retain heat well and are not fire hazardous, which makes it possible to use a heater.
- When the days get shorter and the hens stop laying, they can be “fooled” with additional lighting by extending the “light day” with fluorescent lamps.
Birds will like a comfortable chicken coop, and good care is a plus. As a result, active egg production and weight gain are ensured.
How to make a simple chicken coop, see the following video.
