With the decision to breed 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 layers, it is warm and comfortable.
Do-it-yourself chicken coop for 10-20 chickens
Design phase
When designing the future chicken house, you should decide what kind of poultry breeding you intend to do. If you adhere to only summer chicken cultivation, then a portable design is quite suitable for you - a mobile shed, which, after the end of the warm season, you can move the chicken coop to 10 hens with your own hands at the end of the warm season. 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.
The situation is a bit more complicated 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 through all the details of the design in the drawings to the smallest detail.
A home-made 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 to three adult hens.
A pre-designed project and a diagram with dimensions will help to imagine how the future structure will look.
Before drawing a suitable drawing, you should determine 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 building, providing comfort to the birds and your presence there - two meters.
When designing, a tambour can be included in the drawing plan, which in winter reduces heat losses.
The most popular buildings were those that include the interior itself and the walking area adjacent to the grating. In cold seasons, the bird can be inside, if desired, going into fresh air.
The area of the walk is calculated depending on the size of the width of the chicken coop itself, and for a poultry house 2 meters wide, it averages 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 viewed on video.
Selection of location, choice of foundation and materials
When designing a chicken coop, its location must be of no small importance, there must be a strong 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 coop with your skillful 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 excess space that could be used for further expansion of the holding.
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 one's own hands according to one of several possible options.
Tape and pile foundations have established themselves as highly reliable, but these are high-cost structures, which are more suitable for the construction and price of buildings and houses.
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 poultry houses, which copes with the small load of the structure 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 - an expensive building material that provides the greatest comfort, so a chicken coop for 20 chickens can be made from it. The construction of it is compared with a structure of brick, 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.
The technology of building a wooden house
The following step-by-step instruction will help you make a warm wooden house for 20 chickens with your own hands on the basis of a column foundation.
Foundation
Before construction, it is necessary to draw a drawing of a spacious chicken coop for 20 chickens. When preparing the site, the site is marked with pegs connected by a rope. Thus, 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,
- digging 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,
- the construction of poles above the ground level of 0.2-0.3 meters,
- laying of roofing material and lags, strapping, followed by laying on the logs of a double layer of roofing material or other material protecting the wood from rotting.
How the process of tying the columnar foundation occurs can be found in the photo and video.
When constructing a columnar foundation for a future chicken coop, it is important to maintain a weekly interval after the construction of the pillars to allow the solution to consolidate. As logs, a beam of 100 * 150 or square is usually used. The resulting space between the pillars and the surface of the earth is covered with gravel.
Floor
The easiest option is to lay simple boards directly on the logs when a chicken coop is being built for 10 laying hens. The more difficult option will be the insulation of the floor from two layers, which is needed to better maintain heat, but 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, in which the load-bearing boards of 7 * 7 cm in size, plywood or a board are used. To the support along the perimeter of the building, vertically laid up posts are nailed to them - horizontal crossbars. Outside and inside the wall you can sheathe a rail or plywood. Walls similar to the floor, you can insulate yourself.
Roof
The most acceptable option for the roof when considering the drawings is gable, which allows you to equip the attic and store equipment and feed there. Some prefer single-pitched or flat roofs, which are less practical in use.
For a 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 done by installing rafters at an angle of 40 degrees.
Interior and microclimate
Do-it-yourself arrangement of a finished poultry 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 diagram of their proper location is necessary.
When equipping the building with a natural air ventilation system, holes are made on two opposite walls:
- on one side a hole is cut at a distance of 0.2 meters from the ceiling,
- on the opposite side of the house, the ventilation hole is cut with your own hands at the same distance from the floor.
If desired, artificial electric fans, or a device operating on the principle of drawing, can be mounted in these cut-out openings.
The most complex ventilation system involves laying plastic 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 the hood as can be seen in the video.
Lighting systems
The correct arrangement of the windows will be their device in the direction of 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 a house, directing a stream of light towards perches, feeders and drinking bowls, but direct light should be avoided on the nests.
Among the innovations in artificial lighting are devices with timers (there is a circuit on the Internet) that sets the time for turning on and off the light.
Perches, nests, feeders and drinking bowls
As a rule, do-it-yourself roosts for laying hens need to be made of bars 4 * 3 cm in size or a little thicker, smoothing the upper faces. They are mounted at a distance of at least 0.3 meters with an optimal pole length for 20 chickens of at least 6 meters or more for broilers.
Directly under the perches it is worth placing a waste tray, 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. On a livestock of 20 layers, they should be enough in the amount of 10 pieces.
