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In winter, chickens can lay no worse than in the warm season. If they are warm enough (ideally from -2°C to + 20°C), there is enough light and good (not excessive, but balanced in composition) nutrition, the number of eggs can be the same or slightly less. In addition, knowing that your bird is warm, you can not worry. Therefore, we immediately build a winter chicken coop with our own hands with sufficient insulation, or take measures to reduce heat loss if an already finished room is being converted.
Immediately about the size of winter chicken coops. The recommended indoor bird placement rates are as follows: from 2 to 5 chickens per square. If they are cramped in size, it is possible to “populate” the house more densely. You just need to make more nests and perches. They can be arranged in rows, one above the other. In multi-tiered small rooms, laying hens feel great. With broilers, of course, the situation is worse – it is difficult for them to climb up, but they are rarely kept until winter.
Winter walking is also needed: down to -15 ° C, laying hens can walk on the street. Only in calm weather. With height, too, everything is more or less clear. A meter and a half height is enough for chickens, but you need to make it convenient for you to serve the premises.
What to build from
It is inexpensive to build a chicken coop from cinder block, foam concrete. If there is a place nearby where there is clay, you can expel the walls using adobe technology (hut mud or dry bricks).
If you need a budget warm chicken coop, you can make it like a dugout. The walls can be brought out half a meter above the level, in the south one can make well-insulated windows with double-triple glasses. It is good to insulate the piece that protrudes above the ground and the roof. For warmth, all walls, except for the south one, can be covered with earth. If the top is still covered with snow, it will be quite warm.
Another most, perhaps, the most popular and economical option is a do-it-yourself frame chicken coop. Since the premises are usually small, the beam for the frame needs a small section and it takes a little. The frame can be sheathed with board, plywood, OSB and other similar material. Lay insulation between the posts and sew on the other side. To prevent mice from settling in the insulation, people came up with the idea of upholstering the insulation on both sides with a metal mesh with a small cell. This increases the cost of construction somewhat, but fighting mice is more expensive. It turns out a warm chicken coop and the thickness of the insulation depends on the region. You can focus on the recommendations for the construction of frame houses.
Without insulation in the middle lane, a chicken coop made of logs or thick timber can do. Only the seams of the caulk need to be sewn up with slats. Not so much from drafts as from chickens: so as not to pull tow or moss.
Foundation for a chicken coop
There are options. They build most often on columns – they make a columnar foundation. It happens – they make a shallow pile or tape. But this is in the event that a heavy material is chosen for the walls, or which requires a rigid base: brick (ceramic, silicate, adobe), foam and cinder blocks, shell rock, etc. For light wooden structures – skeletons, timber, logs – it is enough to fold the posts or put ready-made foundation blocks (you can make them yourself).
In the case of a columnar and pile foundation, the supports are placed at the corners and 2-3 meters in between. The load on the base will turn out to be small, therefore they are rarely very zealous.
Warming
Warming and heating – these two issues are very closely related: in a warm chicken coop, even in severe cold, you can do without heating. There are many examples. No matter how economical heating is, as a result it flies into a good penny. Therefore, it is much more cost-effective to immediately build a well-insulated barn than to pay annually for heating it later.
As a heater, you can use any modern materials. You can stuff them from the inside or outside. The main selection criterion is most often the cost. The most optimal is foam. It is inexpensive, has excellent thermal insulation ability: a 5 cm thick slab replaces a 60 cm brick wall. Mounted on glue or long nails with plastic washers, you can put pieces of some kind of plastic.
You can also use mineral wool and polystyrene foam. But mineral wool requires the presence of membranes on both sides. Outside, they put a wind-hydro-protective one with one-sided vapor permeability (vapours must be removed from the insulation). Inside (indoors) steamnotpermeable.
Styrofoam is definitely good. The characteristics are even better than those of polystyrene, even mice do not like it. But he’s expensive. But, you don’t even need to sheathe it: the plates are even, smooth, and there are also colored ones.
You can also use natural heaters: hammer sawdust between two planes, coat with clay mixed with sawdust, etc. In terms of heat conservation, such insulation is inferior to modern materials, but it costs practically nothing. So these methods are also used. For the southern regions with mild winters, “folk” warming is more than enough, but even in the central part, and even more so in the North, they are probably not enough.
It was about the walls. It is imperative to insulate the ceiling in the chicken coop: warm air accumulates under the ceiling. If it is not insulated, it will always be cold. If you line the bottom with cardboard (it holds heat well) or any plate material (plywood, OSB, fiberboard, GVL, etc.), and throw sawdust or lay hay on top of the attic, it will become much warmer. And if you insulate according to all the rules – generally excellent.
Floor insulation is done according to the same scheme as for the house: a draft floor, logs on it, a heater between them, a finishing floor on top. Make it as warm as possible: you won’t regret it.
Not everyone makes the floor wooden. There is also adobe – clay is mixed with straw and allowed to dry, or concrete. The coldest is concrete, but if enough sawdust is poured in, it will be fine. And if, all of a sudden, you still make a concrete floor with insulation (at least brick up the bottles), it will be generally excellent.
When you are still planning a winter chicken coop with your own hands, consider the presence of a vestibule. This small extension allows you to significantly reduce heat loss, and therefore reduce heating costs.
The interior arrangement of the chicken coop is described here.
Отопление
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of properly arranged heating for a winter chicken coop. All owners of poultry houses know this: at a positive temperature, laying hens feel great and rush well in winter.
Electricity
If electricity is connected to the chicken coop, you can heat it with fan heaters or infrared lamps. Fan heaters cheaper to buy programmed. Not in the sense that they are cheaper, but in the sense that less electricity is wound up during the winter. There are two types of automation: by temperature and by time. Naturally, to heat the chicken coop, it is better to take one that reacts to temperature. As it gets colder, say to 0°C, it will turn on, as it rises to +3°C, it will turn off. In general, you choose the settings yourself. The method is effective and quite popular.
Still often chickens are heated IR emitters. But they do not heat the air, but objects that fall into the zone of action of the rays. They are hung over perches and a few pieces above the floor. If the bird is cold, they gather under them. It can be cold in the chicken coop, the main thing is that its inhabitants should be warm. This is exactly what happens with infrared heating. One caveat: IR lamps burn out from frequent on / off, so it is advisable to cut them down very rarely. In people, they burn for months, since they “pull” a little electricity.
It is also important to know about the features of the operation of IR heating lamps (there is for lighting, do not confuse). The surface of the lamps is heated, the design of the lamp itself is not adapted for such loads. Plastic cartridges do not hold the lamp well, and finding ceramic ones is a problem. To ensure fire safety, it is better to make a wire cage for the lamp. So the chickens will not get burned, and if the lamp falls out, it will not break and the litter will not flare up.
Oil radiators inefficient: high consumption, little heat. Homemade open-coil devices are effective, but very flammable, and you have to leave them on. This is too big a risk.
Boiler and kettle
There is another heating option – a boiler and batteries. But this is a dream for most. They also heat with a potbelly stove, a wood-burning boiler, or build a small brick stove. And they try to run the pipe through the chicken coop – so that it gives maximum heat. If the stove is iron, it can be overlaid with bricks, like an iron pipe. Having warmed up, the brick keeps heat for a long time. With normal warming, one firebox is enough for a couple of days.
Heating a chicken coop by decomposing sawdust
There is a way to maintain a positive temperature without heating – due to the heat released during the decomposition of sawdust. But it works only under the condition of normal (at least) insulation. Sawdust is sprinkled on the floor. The first layer is covered in autumn, before the first cold weather. The layer is about 10-15 cm. It lies for a month and a half.
This bedding is much better than hay: chickens do not get sick, as sawdust regulates humidity well. They also like to rummage in the litter, and are constantly busy with this, so the layers do not get fat even with abundant food and limited walking.
After 30-50 days, add a fresh batch of sawdust (you will understand by the smell and appearance). And this time, too, about 10 cm. Then – more. By the end of winter, a layer of about 50 cm is already accumulating. Moreover, even in decent cold weather, the temperature inside the chicken coop is not lower than 0 ° C, which is enough for laying hens. If you dig into such a litter, there will be about + 20 ° C. What chickens do in the cold: they dig holes and sit in them. These are sawdust prey: there is a decomposition reaction with the release of a large amount of heat.
In the spring, the entire mixture is taken out to the compost heap, after some time there will be excellent fertilizer. But one more thing: in the fall, you have to fill a high board in front of the door: so that the litter does not get enough sleep. Walking is uncomfortable, but the draft from under the door is eliminated.
Ventilation in the winter coop
To maintain a normal microclimate in the chicken coop, ventilation is necessary. This is usually a plastic pipe that is located under the ceiling, passes through the roof and sticks out above it at a height of about a meter. With such a difference, natural traction may suffice. The inflow usually occurs through the cracks, but if you have sealed everything up, you can mount a piece of plastic pipe into the wall just above the floor level. From the side of the room, the pipe is closed with a metal mesh, and dampers are made that regulate the intensity of air movement.
Another option without a chimney on the roof is to embed a small exhaust fan directly into the wall. But such a system works forcibly and in the presence of electricity. The pipe is non-volatile))
The optimal humidity in the chicken coop is about 60-70%. Deviations in either direction are undesirable. Increasing the humidity is not very difficult – put more water, but with a decrease, problems can arise. The IR lamp dries the condensate very well: it dries drops on the walls and ceiling in a couple of hours. So at least one is needed to regulate humidity.
Lighting
Every chicken coop should have windows. And although heat escapes through them, you can’t do without them: to maintain a normal state, the bird needs sunlight. And to keep warm, the frames are made with two or three glasses. And be sure to sew them up with a net from the inside, although it won’t hurt from the outside, but not for the safety of the bird, but for its safety.
In order for chickens to continue laying eggs in winter, they need to extend daylight hours: at least it should be 11-12 hours. Therefore, they put them on the lighting. Here it is better to immediately put a controller that will turn the light on and off automatically. Spend more money, but you will go to the chicken coop less.
At first, some chickens will stay overnight on the floor (those that have not climbed onto perches and nests), but if the floor is warm, with sawdust, it’s okay. Gradually, they will get used to it and by the time they turn off they will be sitting in their places.
There is an option – to make them rise early, and leave the evening natural. Then the light will burn in the morning, and in the evening, with the onset of twilight, they will go to bed in the sun.
How to build a summer chicken coop with a paddock, read here.
How to build a chicken coop: video
In this video, a chicken coop is being built by a city dweller who fled to the village with his own hands. The video series contains photographs of the process, so that all stages are visible.
Another video with a clear sequence for assembling a chicken coop from a bar