DIY chicken house construction for 10-20 hens

With the decision to raise chickens, the question immediately arises of where they live. You can build a chicken coop for 10 chickens or 20 chickens with your own hands. The main thing in this process is the correct drawing, it is necessary and the arrangement of the premises inside in accordance with the conditions required for breeding and keeping chickens. To make it as convenient as possible in summer and in winter for laying hens, it is warm and comfortable.

Do-it-yourself chicken coop for 10-20 chickens

Design stage

When designing the future chicken house, you should decide what kind of breeding If you stick only to summer breeding of chickens, then a portable design – a mobile shed , which after the end of the warm season can be moved to another place with your own hands for 10 hens, is quite suitable for you. It is not difficult to make such a room with your own hands even without a preliminary design and drawing. It is only necessary to provide the sizes necessary for 10-20 simple hens or broilers to live, and a place for walking the birds.

A little more complicated is the situation when you intend to breed and keep chickens and broilers year-round. Then the construction of the chicken coop should be approached more carefully and think over all the details of the design in the drawings to the smallest detail.

Homemade chicken coop for 10 or 20 chicken heads with a rooster differs only in size. If there is free space on the site, many recommend building a room with a margin, for example, if you want to breed broilers later. The standard size of the required area is calculated on the basis of one square meter for two or three adult hens.

A preliminary draft and a diagram with dimensions will help to imagine what the future structure will look like.

Before than to draw a suitable drawing, you should decide on the size of the structure. Considering the minimum indicators of the area required for living, with the calculation of the place for drinkers and feeders, building a chicken coop at home for 10 chickens will be at least 5-10 square meters, while the size of a spacious chicken house for 20 chickens will require at least 15 square meters. For broilers, these figures can be increased. The optimal height of the structure, providing comfort to the birds and your presence there, is two meters.

When designing, you can include a platform in the drawing plan, which reduces heat losses in winter.

The buildings that include the interior itself and the walking area adjacent to the grating are most popular. In cold seasons, the bird can be inside, if desired, going out into the fresh air.

The walking area is calculated depending on the width of the chicken house itself and for an house 2 meters wide it is on average 6 * 2 square meters.

In the absence of drawing skills, you can make a house according to ready-made photo schemes with dimensions. Do-it-yourself chicken house projects can also be seen in the video.

Selection of location, choice of foundation and materials

When designing a chicken house, its location should be of no small importance, there must be a solid foundation on which the house will stand, and suitable materials are needed, of which it will be made.

Location

As a place for the future chicken house by its skilled hands for 20 layers, you should choose a small hill, which will save your building from excessive dampness. The best option would be a well-lit area with a walking location on the south side.

If possible, position the house so that there is extra space left that could be used for further expansion of the farm.

Type of foundation

If a capital rather than a mobile structure is chosen as the place of keeping the hens, it is better to choose a foundation for it, which can be done with your own hands in one of several possible options.

Tape and pile foundations have proven to be highly reliable, but they are high-cost structures, which are more suitable for construction of houses in price and fundamental.

Column foundation is a cheap option and easy to build. This is the most often used simple option to do it yourself during the construction of houses, which can cope with a small load of the building and does not require large financial investments.

Materials

Among the materials for building the walls of the chicken coop You can choose the following:

Brick is the most expensive material, which also requires additional heating costs. However, the brick structure is the most durable. Performing the chicken coop with your skillful hands at 10, you can take this material.

Foam blocks are an expensive building material that provides the greatest comfort, so a chicken coop for 20 chickens can be made from it. A building from it is compared with a brick building, it should serve for a long time.

Tree – selected by the largest number of summer residents, as it allows to reduce the cost of heating the building.

Technology for building a wooden house

The following step-by-step instructions will help you make a warm wooden house for 20 do-it-yourself hens on the basis of a columnar foundation.

Foundation

Before building, you need to make a drawing of a spacious chicken house for 20 hens. When preparing the site, mark the site using pegs connected between yourself with a rope. the perimeter of the future building is indicated. How it looks, you can see in the photo.

Further, the construction technology includes in stages:

• removal of the top soil layer with a thickness of 0.2-0.3 meters,
• a pile of holes for each column up to 1.5 meters deep, based on their location at a distance of 1-1.5 meters from each other,
• construction of pillars above the level 0.2-0.3 meters of land,
• laying of roofing material and lags, strapping, followed by laying on the logs of a double layer of roofing material or other material protecting against rotting wood A.

How the process of tying the columnar foundation occurs can be found in the photo and video.

When constructing the columnar foundation for the future chicken coop, it is important to maintain the weekly interval after the construction of the columns to give the solution to gain a foothold.As logs, a beam of 100 * 150 or square is usually used. The space between the pillars and the surface of the earth is filled with gravel.

Sex

The easiest option is to lay simple planks directly on the logs when a chicken coop for 10 laying hens is being built. The option with floor insulation of two layers, which is needed for better heat preservation, will become more complicated, however it is more acceptable for year-round bird keeping. As a heater, eco-mineral wool is usually used. A layer of hay or straw, sawdust or sand is already laid on the finished floor.

Walls

The wooden chicken coop is built according to the frame method, which uses load-bearing boards measuring 7 * 7 cm plywood or board. To the support along the perimeter of the building, vertically placed racks are nailed, horizontal crossbars to them. Outside and inside the wall you can sheathe a rail or plywood. You can insulate the walls like the floor yourself.

Roof

Considering the drawings, the most acceptable option for the roof is gable, which allows you to equip the attic and store inventory and feed there. Some prefer single-pitched or flat roofs, which are less practical to use.

For a single-pitched roof, bars are nailed at a distance of 0.5 meters, roofing material is laid on them and the structure is covered with a suitable material.

Gable is made by installing rafters at an angle of 40 degrees.

Interior and microclimate

Do-it-yourself arrangement of the finished house inside is of no small importance for the comfortable keeping of poultry.

Ventilation system

Many builders recommend thinking about designing a ventilation system before erecting a roof, especially when it comes to artificial ventilation devices for which a scheme is needed their correct location.

When equipped And built with a natural air ventilation system, holes are made on two opposite walls:

• on one side the hole is cut 0.2 meters from the ceiling,
• on the opposite side of the house the ventilation hole is cut do it yourself at the same distance from the floor.

If you wish, you can mount artificial electric fans in these cut-out holes, or a device that works on the principle of drawing.

The most complex ventilation system involves laying bulk pipes with a diameter of up to 1.4 m, one of which is lowered down almost to the floor, not reaching 0.2 meters, and the other is mounted under the ceiling and displayed on the roof. By means of a low-lying pipe, air will be drawn in, and the second will perform the function of drawing as can be seen in the video.

Lighting systems

The correct arrangement of the windows will be their arrangement in the direction to the south or south-west side. It is worth making window spaces so that they open and are an additional source of light and airing the room. Windows are usually located at a distance of 1.1-1.2 meters from the floor. Their size should not be less than 0.5 * 0.5 meters.

Lamps with a power of up to 40 W are suitable as an artificial light source for the house, directing the light flow towards perches, feeders and drinking bowls, but you should avoid getting direct light to the nests.

Among the innovations in artificial lighting are devices with timers (there is a circuit on the Internet) that set the time for turning on and off the light.

Perches, nests, feeders and drinkers

As a rule, do-it-yourself roosts for laying hens are necessary from bars of 4 * 3 cm in size or not thicker, smoothing the upper edges. They are mounted at a distance of at least 0.3 meters with an optimal pole length for 20 chickens at least 6 meters or more for broilers.

You should place a waste tray directly under the perches, which simplifies the procedure for caring for the house .

Laying nests can be open or closed with an optimal size of 0.3 * 0.4 meters or more. The best material for their manufacture with their own hands will be wood. Their number must be calculated from how many layers will live.For a livestock of 20 layers, they should be enough in the amount of 10 pieces.