Meet the photo of a poultry house for chickens, the construction and installation of which is available to every owner. A light structure for the summer keeping of chickens in a summer cottage is built within two hours, when the corydalis is already on the threshold. For year-round maintenance, building chicken coops is more difficult and more expensive.

Construction starts with a project

There are no undeveloped areas in the subsidiary farm. And yet you need to provide a comfortable living environment. In a quiet place, behind a deaf fence on a hill, we create a poultry house with our own hands. It includes a house and a walking area. In summer, a covered room is needed for the night rest of birds on a perch and for arranging nests for laying hens. The walking area should protect the flock from chicken hunters, from the scorching sun, and make it possible to dig the soft earth.

The size of a prefabricated poultry house with your own hands depends on the number of chickens. According to the standards for 5 heads, a square meter of habitat is required. For 10 heads, they usually arrange m and a covered area with an adjoining 2x3 m. A light summer structure is made of boards or plywood fixed to a frame. A perch and nests are installed inside. Access must be provided for maintenance of the chicken coop. In general, a prefabricated poultry house should provide for the presence of:

• sleeping place with perches of 20 cm for each individual;
• boxes for laying eggs, 1 for 6 layers;
• a roof that protects from precipitation and overheating on a hot day;
• paddock with a canopy from the sun and a grid-border 1.8 m high;
• feeders and drinkers installed on the outside of the net.
• a wooden ladder connecting the chicken coop with the paddock.

A neatly built, rationally arranged poultry house for chickens, as in the photo, will decorate the territory.

In such a poultry house, the use of manual labor is minimal. The egg box is moved forward, the folding floor is easy to clean from below. There is enough space for three hens in the house. To keep more birds, there are other options for air light structures. It is important to create an aesthetic structure so that it fits into the landscape.

But the construction and arrangement of a poultry house for chickens, as in this photo, requires skills and should be entrusted to professionals.

Construction of poultry houses with winter chicken coops

Construction for the winter maintenance of livestock begins with the arrangement of the foundation. The base for the house is made taking into account the size of the room and the load on the sole. The chicken coop can be installed on concrete blocks reinforced at the corners. The rest of the space is filled up or laid with a brick tape. The base, the lower beam, must lie on the foundation tape, horizontally.

The walls are made of timber or double walls are mounted on racks with a gasket inside the insulation. It can be any filler, including dry sawdust. The windows in the winter house are small. You can get by with artificial lighting. The height of the walls is higher than human height. The floor is double wooden. The ceiling is covered with insulation from above, the roof is gable, for easy snow removal.

The door fits tightly, a vestibule is needed in front of the entrance so as not to cool the chicken coop when entering in winter. The ventilation openings are 2 pipes with dampers mounted in the walls. It is necessary to provide for heating the room with a heater or put a potbelly stove, but it should be inaccessible to chickens.

Birds at a temperature in the chicken coop below 15 0 C do not rush, at minus temperatures they freeze their combs. You need to regulate humidity and temperature with the help of ventilation pipes and heating. With excessive humidity in the heat, lice and lice can start in chickens.

The experience of arranging a winter chicken coop showed that chickens should be kept at the level of a meter from the floor. In the lower part, organize a daily walk with baths for bathing in an ash-sand mixture and for pecking minerals and hay dust. The warm room below serves for walking, with a hole to the street. In the upper part, perches are constructed with retractable pallets for harvesting guano. There is a layer of sawdust in the pallets and on the floor. From the outside of the bedroom, feeders are fixed along the entire length of the room, so that all individuals have free access to food and water at the same time. Nests are installed at the top and bottom in secluded corners.

Perches should be installed 50 cm from the floor surface for free takeoff. Each chicken will need 20 cm of pole length. It is necessary to exclude drafts in the room. Windows may not be cut. They will be replaced by electric lighting. Due to the absence of cracks and evaporation from chickens, high humidity is established in the room. What air exchange should be in the poultry house? You can open the door of the potbelly stove, warm air will come out through the crack along with moisture. Fresh air will enter through the door gap and ventilation pipes.

In the summer, chickens go on their own to spend the night through the manhole, if a walking area is equipped nearby, covered with a net for poultry houses.

The photo shows a poultry house for chickens, the construction and installation of a pen and a vestibule are made in one block. The room is suitable for year-round keeping of laying hens.

The poultry house for 10 heads is made on a timber frame, upholstered with boards on both sides. The roof is made of boards, covered with reeds. The foundation is columnar, made of wooden poles impregnated with machine oil and resin. Simultaneously with pouring the foundation, a frame is installed. The walls are double with insulation filling. Outside, protection against blowing is created, upholstered with cardboard or roofing felt.

A metal mesh is laid on the adobe floor to prevent rodents from penetrating into the chicken coop.

A plank floor is mounted on top, covered with a thick layer of sawdust. The ceiling and roof are made with an inclination in the opposite direction from the paddock. There is a double window 60x120 cm, electrical wiring in a moisture-proof version. There is a hole for walking and perches. The insulated vestibule is also a place for storing food. The paddock is arranged under the main room and is mounted from polycarbonate for light penetration. The chickens are protected from the wind, there is no snow in the fence, fresh air. The metal mesh creates a protective barrier.

It is not difficult to build a chicken coop if the rules for keeping crested livestock in summer and winter are already known.

Do-it-yourself chicken coop - video

Surely every owner of a private house or a personal plot sooner or later thinks about getting some kind of living creature in his country house. Most often, the choice stops at the familiar and well-known chickens to all of us. They give eggs, and their meat is very tasty and dietary. But, how to properly equip a chicken coop for laying hens with your own hands: you will find photos, videos and detailed instructions later in the article.

Features and arrangement of the chicken coop

If you decide to start a small chicken farm and your main goal is to get a high-quality chicken egg, then you should be aware of the peculiarities of keeping laying hens. The main thing that needs to be provided for egg-laying hens is the presence of a paddock for walking and sufficient illumination of the room. This is due to the fact that the active lifestyle of the laying hen is the key to its high egg production. A light day of 14-17 hours long allows chickens to remain active longer and, as a result, better rush.

The arrangement of a chicken coop for laying hens is not much different from the arrangement of a poultry house for ordinary hens (which can be clearly seen in the photo). Naturally, they need feeders, drinkers, perches and, most importantly, nests. After all, it is assumed that laying hens will spend a lot of time there. You can build a poultry house with your own hands from scratch, or you can re-equip the premises you have.

Another tip: do not choose caged content for laying hens. With this way of life, birds quickly gain weight, but rush poorly. For laying hens, it is better to make a small chicken coop with a fairly spacious area for walking.

How to make your own?

There is nothing complicated in making a chicken coop with your own hands. But in order to build a poultry house correctly, it is necessary that you have a plan or drawing of a future building. You can do it yourself, or you can find it on the Internet, since there are a lot of photos and videos on this topic. It is also necessary to determine the number of livestock that is planned to be kept, and based on this, make a chicken coop of a specific size. We invite you to watch a video where some practical tips on building a chicken coop are given.

Tools and materials

So, having an approximate construction plan, you need to purchase the necessary materials, without which building a chicken coop with your own hands is impossible. So, what do we need to work:

• foundation material, if you have it planned (a mixture of gravel and sand, wooden formwork, mesh, concrete);
• floor material (preferably boards);
• wall material (brick, cinder block, adobe, boards, log house, depends on what you choose for your chicken coop);
• roofing material for the roof (slate, roofing material, tiles, reeds), wood for rafters, insulation;
• for interior wall cladding, prepare insulation, as well as plywood, OSB or fiberboard, lining;
• windows, they can be ordered from the manufacturer if you want windows made of metal-plastic, or you can make them yourself from wood;
• mosquito nets for windows, pipes for the ventilation system, a net to enclose the paddock;
• lamps for additional lighting in winter;
• hay or straw to make bedding for your feathered pets;
• fixing materials: nails, screws, dowels.

This is a rough list of what you might need to build your own poultry house. For its arrangement, perches, nests, feeders and drinkers are also needed - but more on that later. The following video shows how you can convert an existing room into a chicken coop.

Step-by-step instruction

Having a plan and the necessary materials, you can proceed directly to the construction of the poultry house itself. Here we would advise you to follow a certain procedure and start your work by choosing a place for future construction.

Choosing a place to build

It is recommended to choose a place on a hill, do not settle laying hens in drafts or in places with high humidity. The terrain in the lowlands is strongly discouraged, as well as a windy or vice versa, too sunny place is also not suitable. The area of ​​​​your chicken coop is easy to calculate - no more than 3-4 hens per 1 square meter. The walking area should be fenced with a net, along the perimeter of which a moat or trench can be made to drain excess water. It’s a good idea to equip a small canopy so that in case of rain or extreme heat, the layers can hide.

Foundation and floor

After choosing a place and size, we proceed to the foundation. To do this, the top layer of soil (about 30-35 cm) is removed along the perimeter of the building and replaced with a mixture of sand and gravel. Next, formwork is made of boards, on which a frame of mesh or metal rods is laid and concrete is poured. It turns out the floor is the size of the future poultry house, which can later be covered with boards. If you decide to do without a foundation, then you need to put the chicken coop on posts or come up with another support.

In this case, around the perimeter of the poultry house, it is necessary to make a fence of iron sheets, deepened into the ground by about 30 cm, in order to be protected from dangerous rodents. The floor can be made adobe by adding straw or broken glass to the clay solution - this is your additional protection from the ubiquitous rats. From above, as a rule, sawdust or straw is laid, the thickness of the layer of such a litter varies depending on the temperature regime and season. Below, another video is presented to your attention, where the question of how best to lay the floor of the chicken coop is discussed.

Roof and walls

Walls can be made of various materials, there are no strict recommendations here. The most popular now are cozy houses made of log or wood, they retain heat much longer than the more familiar stone or brick buildings. From the inside, the walls are insulated with mineral wool, sawdust, straw, which are laid between the boards. Then you can sheathe the walls with clapboard, OSB-boards, plywood. It is preferable to make the roof gable from slate, roofing material, reeds and also insulate it with mineral wool and sheathe it from the inside with the same material as the walls.

Windows and ventilation system

There must be windows in the chicken coop, their area can be calculated as follows: the ratio of the window area to the floor area should be 1:12. Windows should open to allow air to flow in and serve as natural ventilation. It is recommended to install windows on the south side of the house. Outside, it is better to protect them with mosquito nets to prevent the ingress of insects that will flock to the smell of chicken manure.

In addition to windows, you need to make ventilation holes to remove unpleasant odors from the coop and provide additional air flow. Clean air is also essential for laying hens to keep their egg production consistently high.

How to equip a chicken coop?

Suppose that you have already been able to build a beautiful bird house with your own hands. It remains the case for small things - to properly equip it with the little things necessary for laying hens. The first step is to make feeders and drinkers. It is better to organize their device around the perimeter so as not to clutter up the space for walking. Here, too, there is a fairly wide field for activity, because few people use simple bowls.

Feeders can be hammered together from wood or made independently from an ordinary sewer by cutting holes in it. Drinking bowls are also easy to make with your own hands: from plastic bottles, from the same drainpipes, from old plastic buckets. Since we are talking about laying hens, it goes without saying that we cannot do without nests. Nests for laying hens are best arranged in a darkened cozy place. You can use boxes or baskets for these purposes, laying them abundantly with soft hay or straw. It is optimal that your chicken coop has 1 nest for 5-6 birds.

It remains to deal with perches. Chickens spend a lot of time on them, so they should be comfortable and preferably on the same level. Otherwise, your birds may "quarrel", wanting to occupy the top positions. The optimal height for a perch is 50-60 cm from the floor, and the diameter of the bar for egg chickens is 4x6 cm. The length of the perch depends on the number of livestock and for medium-sized layers should be 17-18 cm per individual. The comfortable distance between the bars is 30-35 cm.

We invite you to watch another video where experienced farmers share their valuable experience in building and arranging a chicken coop with their own hands!

Many people, when purchasing a private house, think about their own household. For both beginner and experienced farmer, chickens are the first to come to mind. Caring for this bird is available even to a younger student, and the profit is very impressive: their own eggs and meat. In a private household, it is most cost-effective to keep from one to two dozen laying hens. Let's take a closer look at how to equip a chicken coop for 20 laying hens on your own.

First of all, you should clearly determine the size of the chicken coop for 20 chickens. This will depend on how much walking the laying hens will have. If there is no space for an aviary at all, or if there is a very small area, then no more than 3 chickens per square meter can be housed on the floor. If it is planned to build a chicken coop with a paddock, then five or six of the chickens will be happy to live on a square meter.

The area of ​​the chicken coop depends on the availability and size of the paddock.

Important! Do not build too large a room - if few birds live there, they will freeze.

But the size of the walking area is limited only by the capabilities of the owner. Chickens will be happy to master both a small paddock and a large-scale plot. It is convenient to enclose the aviary with a net, digging it 30-40 into the ground so that predators cannot dig holes. The site itself can be sown with grass or covered with sand.

Build your own chicken coop

Self-construction in any case will be cheaper than buying a finished product. But, if there is no time and opportunity for independent construction, then you can purchase an already made chicken coop with a paddock or order it according to your own drawing.

The standard set of tools that will be needed at the construction of the chicken coop does not require any unusual things.

During construction, you will need a variety of tools.

These are all those devices that can be found in almost every private home:

• hammers;
• nails, screws;
• screwdriver;
• saw;
• shovels;
• roulette;
• axe;
• plane.

These are the main tools, but during the construction process, something else may be needed due to the available materials and changes in the project.

What materials will be required

The chicken coop is a budget design, so what is available is used for construction:

• boards;
• plywood;
• bars;
• old window frames;
• an old wooden door in which you can cut a hole;
• any heater;
• cement;
• crushed stone;
• roofing material for the roof;
• ventilation pipes.

Most of these materials can be found on the site - boards, windows and doors are often left over from the destruction of old buildings. They are perfect for setting up a chicken coop.

The construction of even such a small room as a chicken coop requires a leisurely step-by-step action:

First of all, you should draw a plan for the chicken coop.

• The first thing you need to take on is not a hammer at all, but a pencil. Draw what the future chicken coop will be like. This will allow you to understand how best to install it and what materials to purchase additionally.
• After the picture, we move on to the drawings. Make a general plan - for 20 chickens you will need a building of 4-8 square meters. Thus, the dimensions of the house can be 2 m by 3 m and a height of 1.8 cm. These are approximate dimensions - you should adhere to the recommended planting rate and change the drawing in accordance with your site
• Place the door, windows on the drawing, do not forget about the place for the ventilation pipes.
• The door should have a small threshold - so water will never get into the chicken coop.

Foundation

The site for construction should be on a hill, this will protect the house from dampness. The chicken coop does not need a foundation as such.

• Holes are dug in the corners of the proposed chicken coop, up to 50 cm deep, a shovel wide.
• Bars are installed in the pits, 3-5 cm wide.
• Bars and pits are covered with gravel.
• Next, cement is prepared and poured to ground level, completely strengthening the bars.
• After a day, you can begin to install the walls - the cement will already dry.

Important! If the chicken coop is set up only for summertime, a wooden box set on an earthen floor will suffice.

We equip the walls

Following the organization of the foundation, it's time to install the walls.

The following instructions will help with their equipment:

• The first priority is the organization of a crown of timber.
• The number of perpendicular bars will be determined by the size of the finishing materials - if the sheets are narrow, then additional beams will be needed. Everything is fixed with self-tapping screws.
• Now the chicken coop is upholstered from the outside and from the inside with the help of chipboard, fiberboard, plywood, boards.
• Insulation is placed between the layers, for example, mineral wool.

The photo shows one of the options for drawings of a chicken coop for 20 chickens.

Roof features

Any roofing material is chosen for the roof: slate, roofing material or ondulin. It all depends on the possibilities, based on this, specific methods will differ. Let's clarify the basics of building a roof. It can be single or double.

The first option will turn out a little easier and cheaper, but the second is warmer and more aesthetic:

• Rafters are installed over the walls.
• A frame is nailed to them.
• A heater is placed on the frame.
• Now - the existing roofing material.

Important! When building walls and roofs, do not forget to install ventilation pipes.

The floor in the chicken coop can be done in three ways:

• concrete;
• boards;
• Earth.

The concrete floor will not allow predators to enter the chicken coop, but this is a rather expensive construction. In addition, concrete is very cold even in warm weather. The earthen floor is very cheap, when using deep bedding it is warm, but it is easy to enter the chicken coop.

The wooden floor is warm, predators do not penetrate through it, and it is cheaper than concrete. Therefore, consider laying a wooden floor.

It is easier and cheaper to make a wooden floor in a chicken coop.

But, depending on their needs and capabilities, everyone can choose any other suitable coverage.

Here is a step-by-step instruction for making a wooden floor:

• You will need boards as long as one side of the chicken coop.
• The material is easier to choose any, inexpensive. After all, the goal of the chicken coop is to provide yourself and loved ones with eggs at minimal cost.
• So that the tree does not quickly rot, logs of bars are laid on the floor. Air circulation under them will not allow the boards to become damp.
• Additionally, the sex tree is treated with any antiseptic, for example, Senezh.
• A frame of bars is laid on the floor.
• We lay boards on it, fitting them to a friend and leaving no gaps. If the boards do not converge, then the edges should be leveled with a planer.
• The finished floor can be treated with drying oil, so it will last even longer.

The perch is the most important place in the chicken coop. On it the bird will spend most of the time.

Each laying hen should have 25-30 cm perch.

On it they sleep and rest:

• For each laying hen, 25 cm of timber - if there are 20 chickens, then perches with a total length of at least 5 meters will be needed.
• Perches are installed either with a ladder or horizontally. You can not install them on top of each other - the chickens will dirty the bottom ones.
• Think about where in the chicken coop it will be easiest for you to clean up - after all, it is under the perches that all the droppings accumulate.
• For manufacturing, you can use the same beam, 3-5 cm wide. Planers, all edges are rounded for the convenience and safety of the bird.

Internal arrangement of nests

It is impossible to imagine a chicken coop without a nest, because laying hens are started to get eggs. The nest can be budgetary - an old basin lined with straw. But, if the chicken coop is being built from scratch, then it is better to arrange neat nests in the form of two-story shelves or in the form of boxes protruding outwards.

• Shelves inside the chicken coop are built quite simply - allocate space for future nests, sketch a drawing based on the dimensions of one nest 30x40x50 cm.
• You need at least one nest per 4 layers. This means that for 20 layers you will need at least 5 nesting sites.
• A high threshold must be made at the nest, otherwise the chicken, leaving, will touch the egg and roll it out.
• Nests can be installed above the perches - then you do not need to fly up to them.
• If the nest is installed separately from the perches, it is made at a height of 40-50 cm. If it is higher, then be sure to make poles in front for a convenient approach.
• The chicken coop definitely needs light to create a long daylight hours in winter. Lamps should be turned away from nests - chickens like to rush in a dark, quiet place.
• The feeder and water are installed separately, in an accessible place. The feeder should have high sides so that the chickens do not spill the feed.
• A drinking bowl with water can be a regular, bell-type drinker, or you can use a nipple drinker - so there will be less dirt inside the chicken coop.

In the chicken coop, nests must be installed where the chicken will rush.

How much does it cost to build a chicken coop for 20 chickens

The cost of a frame chicken coop with insulation will be the sum of the price for:

• beam;
• boards or plywood;
• insulation;
• nails, screws;
• a small amount of concrete and rubble.
• roofing material.

Doors and window frames are most often used old - there is no need to install an expensive new door to the chicken coop. So it is quite possible to meet a small budget, so that the eggs in the end are profitable, and not “golden”.

We offer you to watch a video review from a farmer, where he shows his winter chicken coop with a paddock for 20 chickens.