What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

Many people, having received their plot of land away from urban new buildings, enthusiastically set about building not only greenhouses for their own vegetables, but also premises for breeding domestic chickens. And at first, such owners have a huge number of questions about construction. One such important question is what kind of floors should be in these rooms, and if there are options, which one is better suited for specific conditions.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

Features and types

Ideally, the chicken coop should be built taking into account its heating in the cold season. In order for chickens to have good productivity, they need not only complete feed, but also good conditions. The temperature in the room where they are kept should not fall below +10 degrees. If this temperature norm is not provided, then the bird begins to get sick from hypothermia, stops laying eggs and gain weight. Inflammation of the lungs is one of the most common diseases among chickens, leading to the loss of livestock, and in severe frosts, their paws often freeze. This, of course, cannot be allowed.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

Regardless of what the room is, which is determined for the keeping of the bird, the installation of the floor in it is the primary task of the owner. The floor in the chicken coop must be equipped even before the planned number of layers is placed in it. Its reliability from the penetration of predators, moisture and cold from the outside is a prerequisite for the successful conduct of your own poultry farming.

Most often, the following types of floors are equipped in chicken coops:

  • earthen, characterized by low costs and large shortcomings;
  • concrete, well protecting the bird from uninvited predators, but poorly saving heat;
  • wooden, the most environmentally friendly, but, unfortunately, the most fire hazardous.

Of all the listed types, the best flooring material is wood, and the most budgetary is soil (earthen floor). Concrete coating requires material costs not only for the work with concrete itself, but also for those activities that will be aimed at eliminating the main drawback of such floors – the rapid loss of heat in inclement summer and its complete absence in all the remaining seasons. But we’ll talk about all this a little later.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

Choice of coating

Each owner who decides to start laying hens on his farm is free to choose the flooring in the chicken coop based on his own considerations. But he cannot but reckon with the unshakable requirements for floors in such rooms, depending on the following factors:

  • climatic zone of residence;
  • depth of groundwater;
  • type of soil in the area;
  • presence of predators.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

For the too harsh climate of the regions of the North and Western Siberia, where in winter frosts often reach -40 degrees Celsius, earthen or concrete floors will not work in any way. On such floors without heating, the birds have no chance of surviving. Therefore, for the owner there are no other options for choosing a floor, except for wood or concrete with mandatory heating of the room.

The earthen floor is also not suitable for those areas of residence where there are many predators, loose soil and close groundwater. During the rainy season, an earthen chicken coop in an area of ​​​​close groundwater runs the risk of being flooded, and this state of affairs may be liked only by a waterfowl, to which the chicken has nothing to do. The wooden floor is also poorly suited for a chicken coop in damp areas – in conditions of high humidity, it quickly rots and becomes covered with fungal growths.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

Concrete cover well protects the house from rodents and predators. And if a waterproofing pad is laid under the concrete (thick polyethylene film in several layers, roofing material or roofing felt with bituminous filling), then neither soil moisture nor groundwater will penetrate into such a room. In the southern regions, such a floor is no less good for a poultry house, like a wooden one. But in humid areas, it has all the advantages over other coatings.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

In dry climatic zones, the cheapest floor option is also quite suitable – earthen. There are few costs for it, but with loose soils it must be strengthened by laying and ramming a clay layer on top. Clay holds moisture well and creates a fairly dense upper layer of the coating. It is recommended not to arrange such floors in forest areas, where there are a large number of animals that love to hunt both eggs and the birds themselves.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

With all other equal or suitable conditions, choosing the material for the floor device in the chicken coop, you need to be guided by the following requirements:

  • safety (from water, fire, predators, diseases from cold or heat, traumatic factors);
  • moisture resistance (does not rot, does not freeze, no fungus);
  • strength (does not collapse, does not become limp, inaccessible to predators);
  • low thermal conductivity (keeps temperature well);
  • environmental friendliness (does not harm the bird, does not exude harmful odors).

How to do it yourself?

The flooring should be done after the walls of the house have been erected. And since wooden and concrete floors require a foundation under them, this circumstance must be taken into account before building a chicken coop. Of course, if the choice of the owner was made in favor of one of the named types of sex. If it is planned to use the finished premises for the chicken coop, then in this case the foundation will need to be built into it. It is possible to use the existing foundation under the premises, but this is not always feasible. In addition, it is not known what loads the old foundation was designed for, and whether it can be a reliable support for the entire building after alterations.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

For a wooden floor, the foundation can be of a light type, for example, columnar or tape with a shallow fill. But it is preferable, for economic reasons, to still arrange a columnar foundation for such a structure as a chicken coop. It is made by the method of brickwork on a solid foundation or by drilling (digging) narrow holes to a depth exceeding the depth of soil freezing in a given area. Dug or drilled pits are used as nests into which you can insert scraps of metal pipes with a diameter of about 200 mm, and then fill their inner cavity with concrete. You will get a kind of reinforced concrete pillars, on which wooden logs are laid around the perimeter and at the intersection of the chicken coop partitions.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

If there are no pipes in the household, then it is possible to arrange a columnar formwork in the form of a square with a size of 200×200 mm in each pit using boardsand then also fill them with concrete. It is important that the foundation pillars are at the same height along the horizon and rise above the level of the ground surface by 25-30 cm. This applies to pipes and wooden formwork. If the pillars are made without pipes, then you need to remember to strengthen the concrete casting with metal reinforcement (or simple wire rods with a diameter of 5 or 6 mm). The pillars will be a fairly strong foundation for subsequent construction, so it is enough to distribute them at a distance of 3 meters from each other around the entire perimeter, with the obligatory consideration of the supports opposite on the sides.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

For very small buildings with a planned number of laying hens up to 15-20 pieces, it will be enough to lay brick pillars in 3-4 rows (3 bricks in a row). It is advisable to pour concrete under each brick pillar with a small depth (10-15 cm) into the ground. Such poles are installed more often – approximately every meter. You can meet other recommendations (every 50-60 cm), but this is too often for such a lightweight design.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

Further work on the installation of wooden floors is carried out according to a strict algorithm.

  • Support bars measuring 200×200 mm are laid parallel to the foundation pillars. A waterproofing material (roofing material, for example) is laid between the surface of the pillars and the beams. It is recommended to maintain a slight slope of the support bars on one of the sides in order to facilitate the subsequent cleaning process of the premises.
  • Logs are laid on the support bars perpendicular to them with a step of 50 cm, which are bars 100×100 mm in size.
  • Logs and support bars are fastened together with a hammer and long nails. For reliable fixation, you can use metal corners as fasteners. By level, adjust the horizontal alignment of the lag.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

  • On the bottom of the lag on the entire area of ​​​​the chicken coop, you can fix a metal mesh, which will be the base of the structure. The space between the lags in the presence of a grid can be filled with insulation (mineral wool, for example, or expanded clay). The mesh will hold the insulation provided that it is additionally tensioned. But this operation can be omitted, it is not mandatory.
  • Start laying the boards perpendicular to the joists. Boards must be of the same thickness – at least 25 mm. In addition, they are cut to such a length that the joint is in the center of the log.
  • Nail the boards to the joists at a slight angle.
  • When the floor is completely covered, it must be treated against dampness, and a little later – with lime mortar from pests.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

For a concrete floor, it is better to make a strip foundation with a pouring depth of 30-40 cm. The height of the ridge above the ground is the same 25-30 cm as with a columnar foundation.

When the concrete has completely hardened, it will be possible to be taken for the floor.

  • Level the soil inside the foundation and tamp it down.
  • Make a small layer of sand (2 cm).
  • Fall asleep 3-4 cm with a layer of rubble or large pebbles.
  • Compact a layer of crushed stone and lay a waterproofing material on top of it (two-layer film, roofing felt, roofing felt) with the removal of the edges to the foundation.
  • Fill the floor area with concrete from a mixture of cement and sand in a ratio of 1: 4 with the addition of water to a liquid state.
  • Smooth out the surface of the pour with a special wood leveler and leave it for at least 7 days until the concrete has completely set.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

The earthen floor is arranged as follows:

  • the area is cleared of debris and vegetation, leveled;
  • the soil is carefully compacted (for this purpose, you can make a home-made device based on a sawn wood block with a wooden block handle nailed to it);
  • from above, fill and compact a layer of clay 10 cm thick;
  • if desired, lay roofing material in 2 layers or moisture-resistant non-slip linoleum.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

How to properly insulate?

To warm the floors in the chicken coop, organic bedding material is more often used: straw, hay, sawdust, moss. These bedding components are used not only individually, but also in a mixed form. For example, sawdust is never used for this purpose in its pure form; wood shavings serve as an obligatory addition to them. In some frosty cases, peat or moss is added to them, and in addition this mixture is covered with straw.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

An excellent material for warming floors in chicken coops is moss peat. In addition to warming, it is able to absorb unpleasant odors in the room and has antiseptic properties. Such moss, spread in the chicken coop in winter, saves the legs of chickens from freezing.

The litter on the floor in the chicken coop sometimes reaches a thickness of 30 cm. Due to organic litter, the temperature in the premises for keeping poultry is kept at 23-25 ​​degrees even on frosty days. In this case, no additional heating is required. The thing is that in such a litter, under the influence of bird droppings, processes of decomposition of organic substances occur, accompanied by an increase in temperature in this layer.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

The main thing is to change the old litter, which is losing its ability to save heat, in time for a fresh portion of organic matter, ready to “work” for heating the room. Usually the litter is replaced with fresh one every 1 months. It should be noted that poultry experts do not recommend the use of mineral substances as insulation for poultry houses, for example, mineral wool or wall insulation made of chemical materials that can emit unpleasant odors when heated.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

Reviews and advice from professionals

According to the reviews of experienced poultry farmers, the fact of the predominance of sympathy for the arrangement of chicken coops with wooden floors in private poultry farming becomes obvious. It is understandable: people want to eat an environmentally friendly product and therefore try to provide their laying hens with a natural habitat. Some people on this occasion believe that it is better to spend an extra hundred thousand rubles on good products from their laying hens than to give four times more later to pay for the treatment of the gastrointestinal tract, poisoned by chemical eggs and artificial chicken meat.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

But for now, as statistics say, in our village they live and act in the old fashioned way: the piglet sleeps in its dung, and the hens dig holes in the earthen floor of their coop. Farming in poultry farming is more striving for a decent maintenance of its poultry population, but so far there are very, very few such farms per capita. We will have to take on this matter ourselves in order to eat real eggs with a yellow yolk and chicken meat, which is cooked for 3 hours instead of half an hour, which turns chicken from a poultry farm into dust.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

When choosing the floors for your own chicken coop, you should definitely listen to some useful tips.

  • After laying wooden floors in the poultry house, as well as major cleaning, the wood should be treated again against moisture and fungus.
  • When arranging a chicken coop, one should not forget about such a useful thing as room ventilation. The lack of air exchange in the chicken coop will certainly lead to the formation of condensate on all surfaces, rotting and destruction of structural elements, and poultry diseases.
  • If there was a concrete floor in the house before, then the best solution would be to put a wooden floor on top of it.
  • To keep poultry only in summer, it is enough to build a temporary building with an earthen floor.

What should be the floor in the chicken coop and what is better to choose?

How to make the floor in the chicken coop with your own hands, see the next video.

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Anna Evans

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