Content
A chicken coop may be needed not only for farmers, but also for those who are going to keep chickens in the country in the summer. The house can be summer or winter, stationary or mobile, designed for different livestock. How to make a chicken coop from scrap materials, what can be used for this?
What can be used to build a chicken coop
A chicken coop can be built from a variety of materials at hand. It can be:
- boards,
- cinder blocks
- sandwich panels,
- timber,
- plywood,
- plastic.
You will also need concrete, mesh, insulation materials. You can use the boards that remained after the parsing of another building, and any materials at hand, especially if this is a summer chicken coop for a summer residence.
Where to place the chicken coop
The location of the chicken coop affects the well-being and egg production of its inhabitants.
- It is best to build it on a hill, so that during heavy rain there is no danger of flooding.
- The windows are located on the south side, so the daylight hours increase, and, therefore, egg production, and the door - from the north or west, in order to protect the chickens from drafts.
- Avoid placing the house near sources of noise: chickens can be frightened and stressed, which will reduce the number of eggs. You can surround the chicken coop with a hedge.
Calculate the size
The size of a chicken coop from scrap materials directly depends on the number of birds that you are going to keep in it. The following points are also important:
- will there be an aviary in it,
- whether you will keep broilers or layers.
If you are going to start broilers, then they can be kept in cages, then they will need much less space. For free-roaming hens, a spacious house is needed, possibly with an aviary. However, for a small livestock, it makes no sense to build a huge chicken coop.
- For 10 layers, a house with an area of 2-3 square meters is enough. m.
- For meat breeds, the area of the chicken coop is smaller - for 10 chickens, 1 square meter is enough. m.
- The height of the chicken coop should be about 1.5 m, for broilers - 2 m, it is possible and higher, it is important that it is convenient to enter the house for caring for chickens and putting things in order.
Additionally, you can provide a pantry where you will store your inventory.
How to build a chicken coop
First you need to prepare the base. It is needed even for summer chicken coop from scrap materials. The foundation keeps the floor dry and prevents rodents and other pests from entering the structure.
For a chicken coop, a columnar base can be recommended. In this case, there will be a distance between the floor and the ground, thus providing additional ventilation. The columnar foundation is made of bricks or concrete blocks.
- First, you need to level the site for the future structure. The site is marked out with a rope and pegs so that the posts are aligned.
- Pits about 0.4-0.5 wide at a distance of 1 m are dug under the pillars.
- Further, brick pillars are laid in the pits. To hold them together, you need cement mortar. The posts should be approximately 20 cm above the soil surface. Evenness is checked using a level. Roofing material is laid on the finished posts in two layers.
- It takes 4-5 days for the solution to solidify and the pillars to shrink. The pillars are treated with bitumen, and the rest of the pits are covered with sand or gravel.
The next stage is the construction of the floor. To better protect the chicken coop room from moisture, the floors are made two-layer. Insulation can be laid between the layers.
- A rough floor is laid on the foundation; any material is suitable for it.
- A frame is made around the perimeter of thick flat boards and attached to the foundation.
- For the finished floor, use flat boards of good quality. They are attached to the frame with self-tapping screws.
The easiest way is to make a chicken coop frame from scrap materials. For the frame, wooden beams are used, and it can be sheathed with plywood or boards. For windows, openings are left in which a metal mesh is pulled. For small chicken coop it is enough to install the bars in the corners, which are connected at the top with horizontal jumpers. For a large building, additional vertical posts will be needed at a distance of 0.5 m.
The roof of the hen house is usually made gable, rainwater flows better from it. For such a roof, the rafters are first installed, then the crate is made (boards are laid across the rafters). One of the inexpensive roofing materials is roofing felt. You can use a professional sheet or any other suitable material.
The chicken coop is ready, now you need to equip it from the inside. Sawdust or straw is poured on the floor. Arrange feeders, drinkers, nests or cages for chickens, set up perches, preferably in the form of a ladder, so that it is convenient for chickens to climb them.
You can also make nests in the form of shelves, arranging them in rows or staggered. Drinking bowls and feeders in the chicken coop are installed on a raised platform.
Winter option
If you intend to keep chickens all year round, you will need one year-round coop or two: winter and summer. The winter coop should be small (about half the size of the summer one). For him, 1 sq. m for 4 chickens. In cold weather, the birds try to cuddle up to each other, and not walk around the territory, so this area is quite enough. A small chicken coop made from scrap materials is also easier to heat.
The walls of the coop should be thick. The plywood option will not work, you need to use other materials:
- brick,
- adobe,
- boards,
- foam blocks.
In it, you need to make good thermal insulation and lighting, since the length of daylight hours affects the egg production of chickens.
It is especially important to insulate the roof well. Usually it is made multilayer, alternating layers of roofing material and chips. Also, the roof can be covered with reeds, slate, tiles. For insulation of the ceiling, an additional layer of chipboard is placed.
First, at a distance of about 0.8 m, ceiling beams are laid, providing space for ventilation ducts. Then boards are laid on top of the beams, insulation (sawdust or mineral wool) is laid. Next, the rafters are installed and the roofing material is laid.
Lighting
In a chicken coop, you need to combine natural and artificial lighting. Also, the color of the lamps affects the condition of the chickens. For example, blue calms, green helps young animals grow better, orange promotes active reproduction, red reduces the desire of birds to pluck themselves, but also reduces egg production.
It is better to take lamps:
- fluorescent - one 60 W lamp per 6 square meters,
- fluorescent - the flicker frequency must be higher than 26 thousand Hz,
- sodium.
Ventilation
Another essential part of a winter chicken coop is ventilation. If in a summer building made of scrap materials this function is performed by windows and doors, then for a winter one it is necessary to think over a good ventilation system that would provide the chickens with fresh air and do not blow out all the heat.
The simplest option is a ventilation window, which is located above the door, natural ventilation. The disadvantage of such a system is that a lot of heat goes out through the window, and the cost of heating the chicken coop increases significantly.
Supply and exhaust ventilation retains heat better.For its device, holes are made in the roof of the poultry house and pipes of different lengths are inserted into them. One pipe should rise 35-40 cm above the roof, and the other - by 1.5 m. Due to the difference in heights, fresh air will flow through the shorter pipe, and the longer one will serve as an exhaust hood. The pipes are covered with special umbrellas to prevent precipitation and debris from getting inside.
You can also install a fan in one or both pipes. It is turned on manually or sensors are also installed that start ventilation at a certain temperature.
From the inside, in the winter coop, perches and nests are also made, in addition, a swimming pool is needed. It is a box with a 10 cm layer of sand mixed with sulfur and ash. In it, chickens will bathe and clean themselves of parasites.
Portable mini-poultry house
For a summer residence, a small portable mini-poultry house made from scrap materials may be enough. It can be a small structure with handles that can be carried by two people, or it can be on wheels. An old wheelbarrow, stroller or even a car can be adapted as a platform for it.
Portable chicken coop from scrap materials has many advantages.
- Each time he finds himself on clean grass, thanks to which the chickens are not near their feces and get sick less, they have fewer parasites.
- On fresh grass, chickens can find food in the form of larvae and bugs.
- Such a chicken coop can serve as a decoration for the site, it looks unusual.
- Easier to clean, can be moved closer to the water source and simply hosed.
- A portable chicken coop can be both winter and summer. The all-season option can be moved closer to home for the winter.
- Due to their small size, they are inexpensive, you can make a chicken coop with your own hands from scrap materials.
Of course, there are also disadvantages:
- portable chicken coop is limited in size.
- if you make it not strong enough, all the advantages of mobility are leveled.
A chicken coop made of scrap materials can have a triangular shape, part of it will be closed, and part of it will be open.
The dimensions of the chicken coop are 120 * 120 * 100 cm. Moreover, it will even be two-story. On the ground floor there is a small enclosure for walking, and on the second floor there is a nest and a place to rest with a roost. The floors are connected by a ladder.
First, they make 2 triangular frames from the bars and connect them in the middle of the height with the help of boards, which will also play the role of handles for carrying the chicken coop. Further, in the lower part of the chicken coop, walls are made of wire mesh with a mesh size of 2 * 2 cm. One of the end walls of the first floor is also made of mesh, and it must be removable - it will be possible to get into the chicken coop through it. The upper part is made of lining or boards. The second wall is also made entirely of boards or lining. The mesh frame is made of wooden battens.
Plywood is suitable for the floor of the second floor of the chicken coop. So that the chickens can go down and up, a hole is made in it with a size of 20 * 40 cm. A small wooden ladder is installed in the opening. The second floor is divided approximately in a ratio of 1: 3 and a nest is arranged in a smaller part, and a perch in a larger part.
The roof of the second floor is hinged so that it can be opened. It is convenient to divide it into two vertically.
Perches and nests
In order for chickens to fly well, it is necessary to properly arrange nests and perches for them. The perches in the hen house are placed at a height of at least 0.5 m from the floor, making them strong, not bending. There should also be at least 0.5 m between the perches. If an aviary is not provided for in the chicken coop, then perches are also made in it so that the chickens are in the fresh air for more time in the summer.
It is best to make nests and perches in a hen house removable.Roofs are made over the nests - this not only creates more comfortable conditions for layers that do not like bright light during the laying period, but also helps keep the nests clean for longer. Clean straw is placed in the nests, which is regularly changed. Hay is not used, as it begins to rot quickly enough, which is dangerous for the health of the bird.
Conclusion
Building a chicken coop in the country or in the courtyard of a private house is not such a difficult task. It is important to follow some guidelines that will help make the house comfortable and safe for its inhabitants. A wide variety of materials can be used for construction.
