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Breeding poultry is a troublesome business and requires stable care for the bird tribe. In the conditions of a suburban or suburban area, such conditions, as a rule, do not happen, therefore, in the overwhelming majority, they build a chicken coop in the country with their own hands for a small number of birds, a maximum of five to seven chickens. Alternatively, a simple wooden poultry house can be ordered from a carpenter or you can buy any of the ready-made chicken coops for the country, sold at exhibitions and specialized stores. Most often it is small chicken coop with walking, designed for the summer option of keeping poultry in the country, from March to November.
Which version of the poultry room to prefer
Old and experienced poultry farmers say: "build as for yourself." For chickens, even the simplest chicken coop is a native home. If, after the completion of construction, you can sit for a couple of hours inside the built chicken shed without much discomfort, then the bird living in the country will also be happy.
There are quite a few ways and options to build a chicken coop in the country with your own hands, ranging from brick rooms to carved huts from a bar and tongue-and-groove boards. The most popular for a summer residence is a simple chicken coop, which is easy to assemble yourself from OSB boards, plywood or unedged boards on a frame made of wooden beams, as in the video:
The use of wood as a building material allows you to get a number of additional advantages of a plank-timber house for a summer residence in comparison with sandwiches or brick rooms:
- The wooden structure of the chicken room turns out to be light and at the same time strong, which does not require a capital foundation;
- The use of a bar and a board allows you to do 99% of all work in the hen house with your own hands at the dacha, even if there are no professional skills of a joiner or carpenter
- The wooden structure of the chicken coop can be easily supplemented and changed without a radical restructuring of the room.
Unlike most modern building materials, wood does not scare chickens, the wooden walls of the room have sufficient sound insulation so as not to hear rain or wind, and at the same time, they well convey the sounds and footsteps of the movement of night visitors. The disadvantages of a wooden chicken coop include poor protection from rats and mice that can enter the house for grain and steal eggs.
How to choose a place for building a chicken coop in the country
When choosing a place in the country for placing a residence for chickens, they are guided by the same principles as when installing any other wooden structure. The morning sun should illuminate the windows and the entrance to the chicken coop to the maximum, warming up the cooled room and ridding it of excess moisture. In the midday heat, the chicken coop must be protected from direct sunlight, therefore, if possible, the room is placed under the crown of the tallest tree in the country or tightened with a cloth awning.
The place for installing the chicken coop is best removed from the building of the cottage and the beds, which, like a magnet, will attract the chickens to themselves. There should be no cesspools or compost pits near the walk, sewers or other sources of infection.
An excellent solution is the construction of a chicken coop in the form of an extension to the summer cottage building.This makes it easier to heat the room and control the condition of the chickens. Often, a chicken coop is attached to the summer kitchen in the country, but if it is not heated during the winter, there is little sense in such a decision.
We build a chicken coop in the country
Before building a chicken coop, you need to make a simple sketch, or better a drawing with a layout and internal chicken coop devices in the country. The average area norm is calculated - two chickens per square of usable area. Thus, for 5 chickens it will take 2.5m2, and another 30% needs to be added under the three slots. As a result, the theoretically calculated area of a five-bed house will be 3.2m2, but in practice, a small chicken coop, less than or about 2.8 m, is suitable for the residence of five chickens in the country2, with a ceiling height of 1.8 m, photo.
We will build a room for chickens in the country taking into account the following features:
- As a foundation, a cast columnar foundation, typical for a summer residence, is best suited;
- The body of the room for chickens is made on the basis of a frame made of 100x50 timber;
- Floor, ceiling and side walls are sheathed with tongue-and-groove boards;
- The roof is assembled according to a simple single-slope scheme with a 50-60 cm overhang of the high side of the slope.
Foundation device and chicken coop frame
After choosing a place in the country for the construction of a chicken coop, it is necessary to make a preliminary marking of the soil and the level of water occurrence. If the soil at the dacha in the spring, after the melting of snow and flood waters, remains damp for a long time, most likely the water level is high enough, therefore, you will need to make a full drainage and connect the pipe to the general drainage system of the dacha.
After marking the contour of the future chicken coop, we tear off five holes 50 cm deep for casting or laying out the foundation pillars. At any cottage there is old wire that can be used as reinforcement and trimming boards for making formwork. The dimensions of the supports are 15x15 cm, with a height above the ground of at least 30 cm. After the concrete has set, the upper end of the pillars is cleaned and aligned to the common horizon.
From the timber we collect the strapping of the basement of the future chicken coop and lay the logs. To protect chickens from rats and mice, which are in abundance around the dacha, we pull a fine-mesh metal mesh onto the timber, with a margin of at least 50 cm on the sides.After assembling the frame of the chicken coop, the edges of the mesh will be pushed onto the inner lining of the walls and nailed.
At the next stage, you will need to install the corner posts of the frame, align vertically and knock them down with temporary jumpers from the slab. After installing the upper strapping belt from a bar and ceiling beams, the walls, floor and ceiling of the room are sewn up with a grooved and unedged board, which can be found in the country.
For arranging the roof of a chicken coop, you can use roofing materials left over from the roof of the summer cottage, for example, old slate or metal. The best option is considered to be bituminous tiles or ondulin, but experts recommend slate for giving, as it is resistant, non-combustible and not amenable to the teeth of predators.
Finishing and arrangement of the chicken coop
The entrance to the chicken coop and the walk must be positioned so that it can be easily viewed from the beds or the porch of the summer cottage. In the summer, chickens love to roost at sunset, and the closing time of the door to the chicken room must be constantly monitored. In order to be able to see how and when the chickens entered the hen house, from any point of the summer cottage, a lamp can be installed above the entrance to the room or the vestibule.
In addition to the main door, they often hang a second one, like a mosquito sash for a summer residence, only instead of a polymer mesh, a steel mesh with a small mesh is pulled. A window is arranged in a similar way.
The floor in the chicken room can also be insulated with materials left over from the renovation of the summer cottage.Do not use basalt or mineral wool for insulation, even if the roof or floor was insulated with this material in the country. Chickens hear very well smells and react poorly to phenol and resin vapors, and a relatively thin floor does not guarantee reliable protection. The easiest way is to lay a double layer of polystyrene sheet and a film to protect against condensation, and a vent must be arranged under the subfloor to remove moisture.
Proper ventilation plays a special role in the life of chickens. The simplest is the supply ventilation in the form of a small window in the back wall. An exhaust hole measuring 15x10 cm is cut out in the ceiling area, and the air flow is formed in the form of an air valve on the front door.
The walls of the hen house are insulated in the same way as the cottage. In the simplest case, the boards of the inner wall cladding are upholstered from the outside with EPS sheets, tightened with film and upholstered with wooden clapboard.
Layout of the chicken coop room
Usually, the inner space of the chicken coop is divided into two halves by the central passage, photo. Most of the chicken coop is set aside for the arrangement of the perch, nests and feeders for chickens are installed in the smaller half of the room.
The floor in the hen house is covered with a layer of sand and sawdust, which well protect the tree from bird droppings and at the same time protect it from condensation.
During severe frosts, chickens can leave their roost and huddle together. In this case, you can lay a layer of straw, or use rags available in the country in order to close the slots and the ventilation inlet valve to prevent freezing of the lower tiers of the chicken coop room.
The walls and ceiling of the room for keeping chickens must be treated with a layer of lime. Experts recommend treating the joints and gaps between the boards, wherever insects and parasites can accumulate. The outer walls of the chicken coop are painted with light acrylic paints or covered with weather-resistant varnish, photo.
Conclusion
The wooden room of the chicken coop always turns out to be light and warm. But in cold weather, when it is impossible to do without heating, wood becomes a source of increased risk from the point of view of fire safety. Therefore, the wooden walls of the building for chickens have to be regularly treated with fire retardants, and the installation sites of the heater must be sheathed with metal sheet. In this case, the room for chickens in the country will stand for a long time.
