Chickens are a good way to always have meat and eggs at home, in addition, the chickens are great for earning through poultry farming. If this is a large poultry farm, then chicken coops are most often large and specially equipped for winter frosts. However, if you are a beginner poultry farmer and are just going to get chickens, you should think in advance about how to insulate the chicken coop for the winter. You can create comfort and warmth with your own hands already in the constructed house. The main thing is that the purchase of feed and young animals should not be in vain, and the layers should be comfortable.
How to insulate a chicken coop for the winter with your own hands
Poultry conditions must be at a high level. Warming the chicken coop for the winter is no more difficult than treating a sick bird for infections. It is important that the temperature in the chicken coop does not reach below 0 ° C in winter. Chickens will gain weight well and produce offspring and eggs. It is not necessary to use expensive material for this. Chickens are unpretentious for improvement, but the barn or the room in which they usually live should be warm, well-lit and cozy.
Materials and the choice of a place for building a chicken coop
If you have a spacious room inside the barn, then you can allocate a place for the pens of chickens in it. It should be made of natural materials, usually a board, wood - the most affordable that is in the village or outside the city. It is important to understand how many chickens are at your disposal, whether you will breed them, what should be the area of construction. To insulate the chicken coop for the winter, cement mortar under the foundation, insulation on the roof, and foam plastic will also help.
The place for the chicken coop needs to be chosen dry, on a small hill. If the climate in your territory is prone to constant rains, then this factor should not be missed. Just warm the house chicken coop for the winter will not be enough. It is important to protect it from moisture. A good foundation, on a hill, is more likely to stand in the rainy season. The birds will walk in the warm time and, accordingly, you need to fence the area near the chicken coop with a grid. All this can be easily done with your own hands.
Coop Construction
It is difficult, but possible to build a barn room for hens alone, as well as to properly insulate a house coop for the winter.
However, the question immediately arises: "how to insulate a home chicken coop for the winter with your own hands?" To cope with such a thing, you definitely need help. It is better if it is a person with experience who has his own chicken shed or he is a builder.
Warming should be conceived immediately, during the construction of the chicken coop. It is better to strengthen the floor and walls with boards, they need to be laid tightly and close to each other. To process with a solution of lime is better in 2-3 layers. Failure and omission of elementary rules during construction will allow the multiplication of infection inside the barn, which is fraught with diseases in chickens.
Ventilation is an important factor.
You need to think it over right away. The physical condition of the hens depends on this. Stagnant indoor air is not only unpleasant for people, but also for birds. In the chicken coop, one window will be enough. You don’t need any more: this is unnecessary trouble and the cost of warming with your own hands in the winter, and in the spring - getting rid of the insulation. One window is enough to replace it with a mosquito net for the summer, use it as ventilation, dry and ventilate the room. Lighting is also important for the development of chickens, it contributes to the health of birds and good egg production.
It is important to consider the amount of herd that will live in the chicken coop. Perches for one chicken on a pole should be at least 20 cm. To save space, the distance between them should be more than half a meter. The extreme perch from the floor should be at least 80 cm apart. However, weak birds will sit below, and strong birds will climb up.
Floor
Materials used to insulate the floor:
- A deep layer of litter (performed in at least 2 layers).
- Shallow layer of litter (in one layer).
You need to choose natural and organic materials for bedding. Use on the floor chemistry, linoleum, tiles and the like that put at home, is not worth it. Birds will not like this, and it’s a very costly pleasure to put parquet in the chicken coop.
They insulate the floor with natural materials that are easy to find at home or in a store at a low price:
- sawdust or shavings from wooden boards;
- straw or hay;
- moss peat.
Such materials will please hens, and warming with your own hands and folk methods is much more effective and practical. This is an environmentally friendly material that does not require specific processing; it can be replaced at any time. It muffles an unpleasant odor, moss has the ability to absorb droppings, and since it is not difficult to find in plantings or forests, if there is one nearby, this is a good alternative to all kinds of flavors and other chemicals.
During construction, you can think of such a thing as a vestibule at the entrance. A small separation between the main door and the entrance to the chicken coop. Often farmers neglect such a room, and this is another effective way, How to keep frost in winter.
It is preferable to lay the litter with a deep layer on the floor so that the temperature is maintained there at 26-27 ° C. If there is a ready-made room for chickens and the floor consists of old rotten boards, and there is no time anymore, the cold is just around the nose, the floor is covered with sawdust, the best option would be coniferous wood shavings, it has disinfectant qualities. Straw and moss are poured on top. Such a litter will not cake and will last a very long time. An important point: in a chicken coop with such bedding and where there is no feeder, you should not run chickens. First they equip a place for a feeding trough, fill in feed and only then let the bird in. They can just eat their gender.
Walls
Often the walls are missed and forgotten about their insulation. When building walls, it is worth considering the climate in which you live. If you have more severe winters, then use coniferous trees for the foundation of the walls, if softer, ordinary boards will do. It is best to close the cracks with moss or peat bog. To prevent the chickens from eating it, the room is sheathed with wooden boards. Warming the outside of the chicken coop is best done correctly by attaching the foam and sheathed it with slate.
The second option for wall insulation is two rows of boards with thermal insulation between them. Such a solution will require insulation (sawdust, needles from conifers or dry leaves) and lime with a ratio of 25: 1 relative. Everything is carefully tamped after the first row of boards, the second row dries and fits. On the inside, it is plastered with clay with sawdust, the mixture must be applied in a thickness of at least 3 cm. After drying, the cracks are smeared with a solution of clay and fine sand (1: 2). The walls should be completely dry. In case the chickens do not glue stucco from the lack of calcium in the body, the walls need to be treated with inexpensive material (fiberglass).
For cold regions, a good solution would be to use, albeit a very cheap, but high-quality material - an infrared film. The temperature will remain stable and comfortable for the bird. As an additional heating, you can use it on the ceiling. Infrared light will help not only to keep heat in the chicken coop, but also to avoid fights and fights among young animals, birds will not be stressed, because such lighting is the most favorable for them.
Roof
The roof is insulated with the same material used for the walls. If the construction is only in the plans, you can not forget about the beams, it is enough just to simplify your task with insulation. The presence of an attic is optional, but for its insulation it is worth using roll materials. No additional fasteners are needed. If financial opportunities do not allow, then it is quite simple to do it yourself: you just need to lay out sawdust, earth, straw, sand and similar loose organic materials in the attic.
Also, the roof can be sheathed with polystyrene foam or mineral wool, insulated with familiar materials and sealed with plastic or other material. The inside of the roof can be insulated with felt: it will help to keep and retain heat.
Windows and doors
In the chicken coop, birds should feel comfortable and protected. To do this, their house needs to be insulated and create comfortable conditions:
- as mentioned above, if possible, you need to make a vestibule at the entrance to the chicken coop. So it will be possible to save on warming, because frost just will not enter the room.
- Doors should close tightly, not create drafts, there should be no gaps in them.
- The room should have separate ventilation, but one window will be more than enough. It is needed as a source of sunlight and to save electricity. Chickens need at least 11 hours of lighting per day.
- The door for walking birds should not be tightly sheathed for the winter, especially if the cold season passes gently and without heavy rainfall. On warm days, chickens can be let out in the fresh air in order to get their portion of vitamin D.
When building and insulating the chicken coop for the winter, one should not forget about windows and doors. Often the owners lose sight of this factor and the birds just freeze. For normal and proper keeping of chickens, for good egg laying and lighting, it is enough not to neglect such simple rules.
Windows have only one function - the entry of daylight into the room, you do not need to put large plastic windows there. Once they wear themselves and will give crevices and drafts. They combine lighting day and evening, and in the summer they remove windows, put a mosquito net as an aid to ventilation in airing the chicken coop.
Conclusion
Many beginners and not only ask how to insulate the chicken coop for the winter with their own hands. The answer is quite simple: the main thing is desire. If you want your bird to live long, bring tasty and fresh products, be healthy and not under stress, then it is better to insulate the chicken coop immediately during construction in order to avoid shortcomings and then not redo it when there is very little time left before the cold.
How to insulate the chicken coop for the winter? Materials must be natural, organic. Wood can easily be found in your garden, in a barn or in a forest. To create comfortable conditions, birds need to insulate the floor, walls and roof, install a window and doors that are tightly closed, monitor lighting and temperature in the chicken coop. Applying these simple rules, it is easy to ensure that the hens will delight with fresh and large eggs, not only in the summer, but also in the winter, all year round, not to get sick with infections and calmly rush. To see clearly and better to calculate some of the nuances of construction, it is easy to find training videos on the Internet.
