Chicken coop with your own hands — construction, decoration and arrangement with your own hands (95 photo ideas)

Before starting construction, the first thing you need to decide on the size of the future room. The optimal solution is to place no more than five chickens per square meter. If the total area turns out to be very small, you can compact the house by increasing the number of nests and roosts. So to say "add floors" on top of each other.

If you are arranging a chicken coop for laying hens, they will be quite comfortable and cozy. It is harder for broilers with this, they do not like to climb to a height.

Chickens can be taken out into the air up to minus 15 degrees in calm weather, so a fenced adjacent territory will be extremely useful. One or one and a half meters high is enough for birds, the main thing is that it is convenient for you to use the building.

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Each owner strives to meet the budget as much as possible, for this purpose it will be quite successful to build walls from cinder block or foam concrete. If clay is freely available, it would also be nice to arrange a mud hut or dry homemade bricks.

In our strip, winter weather requires insulation of premises for poultry and livestock, here, as an option, you can consider building a dugout type. Half a meter above ground level with a window on the south side will be enough.

It is important to note that you will need double, or better triple, glass for the window. You can insulate only the part that protrudes above ground level and the roof. The walls can be showered with earth, excluding the southern one. In winter, during the snowfall, it will be quite warm.

Frame wooden buildings are no less popular. It is quite affordable to build a room from a medium-sized section of timber, then sheathe it with plywood, board or other affordable way. The convenience lies in the fact that the walls of the chicken coop are hollow and you can sew insulation in them.

Practice shows that mice love to settle next to chickens, which are comfortable to live next to grain, they settle just in these insulated walls, so people often add a small metal mesh under the skin.

It's better to take care of it once than then fight the invasion of rodents. As for the thickness of the insulation layer, here we take into account how much the temperature drops on the thermometer during the frosty period.

Log walls do not require additional insulation, but chickens are very fond of pulling tow from the seams, therefore it is advisable to provide for this moment and score the seams with slats.

Foundation

If you set out to build a foundation for a chicken coop, the first thing is usually considered columnar or pile. In this case, it is enough to put the supports on the drones and every two or three meters between them.

As a rule, buildings have a small weight, so you can use ready-made blocks, even in a homemade version. Particularly strong foundations are built only when the walls are conceived of heavy materials such as bricks, foam blocks, cinder blocks or shell rock.

Frost protection

It is important to pay special attention and think in advance about the insulation of the frame of the chicken coop and the heating of the room. Since heating is a costly thing, in financial terms it will be more profitable to take care of the insulation of the shed in advance, so that in the future there will be no additional heating costs.

The insulation of the chicken coop can be arranged both inside the walls and right outside. Inexpensive modern means that will be affordable will be suitable.

Foam is used most often, it is light, the cost is minimal, and the heat insulates perfectly. A five-centimeter thick slab replaces a brick wall of 60 centimeters. In the installation – it does not happen easier. You can plant blocks on glue or nails with additional fixing washers or use improvised means.

Mineral wool is also available for sale, which is well suited for insulation, but it requires additional costs for wind and moisture protection from the outside and steam protection from the inside of the walls.

Very useful material – polystyrene, characteristics, it is better foam and avoid rodents, the surface is thought out, looks good and does not require plating. Of the minuses – a rather high cost.

Nature has also given us a lot of materials that can be used for insulation for free. The walls can be clogged with sawdust, you can mix them with clay and coat the surface. For the southern regions, this method is quite suitable. The middle lane, and especially the north, still provides for increased measures.

You will also need to take care of the ceiling, if it lets heat out, all efforts will go to waste. Cardboard retains heat well, it can be used to cover the surface, but it is better to use plywood and leave sawdust or hay in the attic.

In the same way, an additional layer of insulation will not interfere with the floor, this is done according to the system of any residential premises. Insulation is laid between the rough floor and the finishing floor, in the intervals between the lags. It is better to try to seal the floors as much as possible, it will definitely not be worse from this.

By the way, a wooden floor is not the only option, you can lay a mixture of clay with straw or concreted. Concrete floors are cold, it is advisable to embed a warming layer, at least from bottles.

Another way to avoid heating costs is to build a vestibule or dressing room into a simple chicken coop. Such a move significantly reduces the loss of warm air when opening and closing doors.

If it is still necessary to heat

In this case, you need to think about everything in advance, then the laying hens will bring eggs well even in the most severe cold.

If electricity is supplied, you can warm up the room with infrared lamps or thermal fans. To reduce energy costs, it is advisable to purchase equipment with heating sensors so that it turns off when the desired temperature is reached.

Emitters work differently, they warm up objects in the area of action and the bird, when it freezes, gathers there. Such lamps consume little electricity, but often burn out. When installing lamps, it is important to take care of fire safety, since everything is lit in the chicken coop.

Oil radiators will not work, they wind up a lot of light, and they heat poorly. Open devices with a spiral in a room with a bird are dangerous, as they will often be unattended.

Some people experiment with a boiler or a stove. Lined with bricks, it is able to keep warm for up to two days, provided the room is well insulated.

Decomposition of sawdust

You can limit yourself to the heat that appears when the sawdust decomposes. This option is better than hay, because sawdust removes excess moisture well, then the chickens do not get sick and they have something to do. Birds often dig sawdust, it warms them and does not let them get fat.

To do this, the chicken coop is well insulated beforehand, a board is nailed in front of the entrance, so that the insulation does not fly out into the street, the floor is lined with a fifteen-centimeter layer of sawdust before the first frosts. For a month, everything is left as it is.

Then, when it becomes clear that the sawdust is stale, a characteristic smell appears, then the layer is replenished by ten centimeters. By spring, it will reach about 50 cm. This method keeps the temperature at about zero degrees, which is quite enough for a bird, especially if the animals start to freeze, they can always burrow.

With the onset of heat, you can apply the remains as compost, you will get fertilizer.

Take care of oxygen access

When constructing the ventilation of the chicken coop, it is important to take care of the absence of additional cracks and prevent drafts. As a rule, a plastic pipe is mounted under the ceiling with an exit through the roof.

It is possible to make an additional intake of air at the floor level, the main thing is to protect all this with a grate or a flap. If there is always light, you can build in a hood.

It is not difficult to regulate the humidity of the room, to increase it, you can install containers with water. But if it is elevated, an infrared lamp will help, it perfectly removes condensate.

Lighting device

The chicken coop cannot do without a window on the south side. Yes, it slightly reduces the air temperature, but a bird is a living organism that needs sunlight. In addition to at least double glass, it is important to provide the opening with a mesh from the inside, for the safety of chickens.

In winter, when the daylight is shortened, so that the chickens lay better, they turn on additional lighting. For convenience, you can set up automatic switching on of the light at dusk, at least for a couple of hours. Of course, you can do this manually.

Also check out the photos of chicken coops with your own hands for a more complete idea of the design and, possibly, to discover interesting solutions.