We are building a chicken coop for broilers. We build a chicken coop for broilers ourselves. But first, let’s look at the main mistakes when building a chicken coop.

If you are thinking about getting into poultry farming, then this article will be useful for you. You will learn that you can make a chicken coop for broilers with your own hands. As a result, you can save money, unleash your creativity, and create the perfect environment for your chickens. Thus, you can learn about what important nuances you should pay attention to when designing and planning the construction of such a structure.

The difference between a broiler chicken coop

It should be understood that a chicken coop for broilers in the country will differ from a regular poultry house. There are a few main differences worth noting:

The poultry house for broilers has relatively small dimensions.
Good lighting. It is necessary to install lighting fixtures that will not only provide the chicken coop with light, but also with heat.
High-quality ventilation.
Warm room.

Requirements for a chicken coop for broilers

Before building a chicken coop for broilers, it is extremely important to understand all the intricacies of the question of what it should be like. The final result directly depends on the successful calculation of all details. So, for design you can use ready-made drawings and diagrams. A mandatory element is the foundation, which must be strong and reliable, ensuring long-term operation of the broiler chicken coop. But these are already well-known basic requirements. Let us draw your attention to the following extremely important features.

Size

Before you begin developing a project, you must immediately determine how many chickens it will be designed for. As the experience of many poultry farmers shows, one square meter can normally fit ten large birds and about fifty chickens. Moreover, you need to make sure that the chicken coop is convenient to maintain. For this reason, many recommend building cells in several tiers.

Advice! The level of the upper cage should be no higher than one and a half meters from the floor.

Having decided on the dimensions, you need to pay attention to the following details.

Location and fences

Another important aspect that must be taken into account when building a chicken coop with your own hands in the country is the location of the building. First of all, you should not think only about your comfort, although this plays an important role. It is worth noting the fact that chickens must be provided with all the necessary and comfortable living conditions. So, the soil under the broiler chicken coop should be dry.

Important! If you build a broiler chicken coop on wet and clay soil, this can lead to constant illness in the chickens. If there is no other suitable place on the summer cottage, then the soil should be drained artificially.

Moreover, it would be good if the broiler chicken coop was directed towards the southeast. Why? This arrangement will provide the chicken coop with the necessary sunlight. Having natural light is key to keeping your birds healthy.

If we talk about fences, then they should serve as protection for chickens from drafts and wind. Be sure to think about this important factor. Otherwise, the presence of birds in or near the chicken coop will constantly be associated with the risk of various diseases. Some poultry farmers plant hedges, for example, of grapes.

Walking area

This is another important aspect that you should worry about when choosing a suitable place to build a chicken coop in your country house. It would be nice if there was a lawn. Although there must be a sunny side to provide the necessary warmth, it is important that the bird has somewhere to hide outside from the scorching sun.

Microclimate

If in summer everything is clear and simple, then in winter the bird may be uncomfortable, especially if there is severe frost in your region. For this reason, it is necessary to ensure that the inside of the broiler chicken coop has a comfortable temperature and microclimate all year round, including in winter. Remember that it should not be very hot or cold. All this can greatly affect egg production.

Chicken coop design

Let’s also say a few words about the very design of the future country chicken coop. Mostly it is a square or rectangular building shape. Although, in principle, there are no strict rules here. The main thing is to provide the internal space of the chicken coop so that the broilers feel normal, and you can rationally arrange all the available cages.

Necessary materials and tools

Before making a chicken coop for broilers, you need to prepare all the necessary building materials and tools. The choice of building material directly depends on the following factor - whether broilers will live in it in winter or only in summer. If this is a summer chicken coop for broilers, then the set of materials will be simple. If poultry breeding continues into the winter, then it is extremely important to pay attention to literally every little detail.

When choosing building materials, give preference to high-quality raw materials. This will significantly increase its service life and will also create normal living conditions for broilers. So, for different nodes, you will need the following set of building materials:

For walls, you can use different sheet materials, for example, plywood, OSB. There may also be permanent buildings made of aerated concrete blocks, bricks, etc.
To make the foundation, you need to purchase cement, crushed stone, slag and wooden formwork. You can make a strip foundation or a columnar one. Accordingly, the set of materials may differ.
The roof can be covered with different roofing materials, for example, ondulin, slate, tiles, etc. Wood is required to create a rafter system.
Metal plates for making pallets.
Fasteners and more.

As for the tools, their set will depend on the chosen construction technology. If the chicken coop for broilers is wooden, then a set of carpentry tools is assembled.

Manufacturing technology

So, now let’s take a closer look at the technology of how to make a chicken coop with your own hands and without the involvement of specialists. Of course, the videos and photos in this article can help you with this process.

First of all, the base is prepared. The method of making a foundation can be very different. For example, let it be tape. After this, the walls and rafter system are erected. Next, the entire roof is completely covered. Be sure to fill the screed to ensure good conditions inside the chicken coop.

Don’t forget about making a high-quality ventilation system. For this purpose, windows can be provided with vents. This is the simplest solution. It is possible to make forced ventilation. After this, special cages are made that allow the broilers to be kept in a more organized manner. So, one mature broiler requires a space of about 300 mm in width. This is exactly the kind of roost that one broiler should have.

Conclusion

So, as you can see, making a chicken coop with your own hands for broilers is not particularly difficult. It’s quite possible to handle all the work yourself. To do this, we recommend that you watch the prepared video material. Also, photos, diagrams and drawings in this article will help you design a chicken coop for broilers that will allow you to organize the operation of the poultry house. Remember that it is extremely important to pay attention to every little detail discussed in this article. We hope you found this material useful. If you have experience in this matter, then share it by leaving comments at the end of this article. This will help novice summer residents make a chicken coop for broilers that will meet all quality requirements.

Having a private house or dacha, every person at least once thought about raising chickens. Not even so much for profit, but for the availability of environmentally friendly and fresh meat for yourself and your family. Those who have tried homemade chicken know how different it is from store-bought chicken.

The difference between broilers and regular chickens

For those who still decide to keep chicken for meat, the choice is obvious - broilers. It's simple, this particular breed is prone to rapid and high-quality weight gain over a short period of time - 2-3 months. The peculiarity of the breed is weak paws. If you get an ordinary laying hen, then no matter how much they eat, they will run around and, accordingly, gain poorly.

An adult broiler weighs up to 5-6 kg, when they reach half of this weight, not to mention running, walking becomes difficult, which is why they gain weight faster than others. In this case, they will have to be fed not with millet, like laying hens, but with compound feed, which is divided into starter (for young chickens) and finish (given from about 3-4 weeks).

Also, the broiler breed is almost not egg-bearing; at least maturation occurs already during the period of maximum weight gain, which also has a positive effect on growth rate. Thanks to this factor, their meat is much softer than that of laying hens, in which veins are constantly found.

Features of a chicken coop for broilers

Before building a broiler chicken coop, you need to know in advance whether you will keep the birds year-round or only seasonally.

Due to cold winters in most areas, many homeowners purchase chickens in the spring and finish them in mid-autumn, thus raising two shifts of birds during the warm period.

In this situation, large material and labor costs will not be required. Some people have success keeping chicks in a cardboard box with a table lamp in their garage, and when they are a little stronger, they are released into a fenced enclosure.

If you plan to grow year-round with high turnover, then the issue of construction needs to be approached more thoroughly. Also, the radical difference between the broiler breed could not but affect the design features of the chicken coop, so if you have already had experience with building a chicken coop for laying hens, you can forget about this, since the specifics will be different.

So, a chicken coop for broilers with year-round maintenance should have:

reliable foundation, walls, roof;
good thermal insulation, and ideally a heating system;
a floor that will not rot or absorb moisture. Also, he should not “pull” the cold;
natural lighting for adults, artificial for new batches of chicks;
fences or cages so that the bird moves less.

Of course, you can highlight some old barn that has stood on the territory since the war, but the problem is that the breed is extremely unstable to diseases and infections that rodents carry. Although during the fattening process antibiotics are supposed to be dripped into the food, in fact, the slightest draft through the gap between the boards or a stray rat, and the entire bird can die within a week.

An important point to note is the arrangement of lighting and barriers. It is necessary to clearly understand how many shifts will be grown at the same time and create the necessary conditions for each. After all, each age requires different conditions.

For example, when rearing multiple shifts, chicks need additional lighting and warmth, draft-free enclosures to minimize drafts, finer screens, separate drinkers with starter feed, etc.

By the way, it is worth mentioning that broilers are afraid of loud sounds, so if the chicken coop will be located near a source of constant noise, for example, a roadway, you need to take care of sound insulation.

Preparing for construction

Keeping in mind the number and timing of keeping birds, you can start preparing for construction. First of all, we choose a place. To do this, you should look for an area on a hill so that water does not flow towards it and it does not become a source of unwanted moisture; it is also better to go deeper into the area to avoid loud sounds from the street.

When choosing a location, you still need to think about the issue of lighting. Naturally, if you place a chicken coop between two tall buildings, you won’t have to wait for full light. It would be ideal to place the building on an embankment and away from other buildings. By the way, the farther the chicken coop is located from other households. buildings, the less likely it is to introduce diseases.

Measurements and drawings

The size of the future building directly depends on the number of poultry raised, the budget and the space allocated for construction. Let's look at the most effective and simplest way to keep birds. Using it, it will immediately become clear what dimensions the future chicken coop should have.

Modern poultry farmers prefer to raise broilers in longline cages. Usually about three tiers. Each bird net must be at least 50 cm high; between the tiers a tray must be installed into which droppings will be dumped. There must be at least 80 cm from the floor of the upper tier to the ceiling for artificial lighting equipment. There should be 50 cm from the base of the lower tier to the floor of the room to prevent dampness from the floor. So the minimum height of the building from floor to ceiling is 2.8 -3 meters.

The area of the room must be calculated based on the estimated capacity. But the smaller the area, the lower the cost of heating the room. According to the norms, for 20 chickens it is permissible to calculate about 1 square of cage, but then you will have to clean it as often as possible. In general, to fully provide yourself with meat, a room of 3x4 meters will be enough, where, in addition to the cage, food, a heating device (heater, potbelly stove), and a hood will be stored.

Materials and tools

Of course, the construction of a new building in our time is quite expensive, but with proper rearing of broilers on a serious scale, the construction will quickly pay for itself. To make a chicken coop for broilers you will need the following tools:

roulette;
level;
Master OK;
plumb line;
hammer;
buckets;
hacksaw;
nails 70 mm, slate.

You will have to purchase the following materials:

bags of cement;
sand;
crushed stone;
cinder block or brick;
timber 100x50, 20th board, board for formwork;
insulation (foam plastic, mineral wool);
roofing felt;
metallic profile;
slate.

It is also advisable to add polyurethane foam to the list, which can later be used to walk through places where a draft is expected to occur.

Construction

Even if this is a chicken coop for broilers in the country, it is better to involve experienced comrades or independently study the technology of installing formwork and laying bricks. Fortunately, there are enough video materials with step-by-step instructions for this.

Foundation and walls

So, the most important thing is pouring the foundation and erecting the walls. First, we remove a layer of earth to a depth of about 20 cm, knock together the formwork and pour in cement mortar mixed with crushed stone. We level this whole thing with a trowel. To speed up the process, you can rent a concrete mixer. After hardening, we lay the brick, not forgetting about the plumb line and level.

Also, don’t forget about the windows, which should preferably be placed on the south side of the building. There are no special requirements for windows, but it is desirable that they can provide ventilation and not be the main source of heat loss during the cold season. Of course, you don’t have to buy double-glazed windows; you can use old frames, glass cutters and glazing beads.

Floor and roof

After the walls, you can immediately proceed to the roof. To do this, we fix the timber around the perimeter, and on one side we make small racks, which will subsequently provide the roof with a slope. Then, every 70-90 cm, we place a beam across it, sheathing the structure with boards as close to each other as possible. Next, roofing material is laid overlapping each other. To prevent it from slipping, the joints are pierced with nails with large heads. We put slate on top and secure it with slate nails.

The main thing you need to know about the field is that it must withstand the load of the legs from the cells, not attract moisture, and be easy to wash, because no one has canceled timely care and wet cleaning. Usually the floor is poured with concrete, and linoleum is laid on top or boards are laid.

After this, you still can’t say that the chicken coop is ready. From the very beginning, you will need additional lighting equipment for the first batch of chickens. Therefore, additional wiring needs to be done from the house to the chicken coop.

Actually, for a couple of dozen chickens, two ordinary incandescent lamps will be enough, but in the future it is advisable to take care of a full-fledged outlet for artificial lighting.

Equipment inside

Now about the main thing - the internal equipment of the chicken coop. As mentioned above, the best way to breed poultry is a three-tier arrangement. The area of each tier is about 1 sq.m. So in one such three-tier net under normal conditions you can raise up to 50 chickens. Anyone can put together such cells.

To do this, you can take a metal profile or a wooden beam (the timber in this case is less durable) and galvanized rolled mesh. The size of the cells can be taken in different sizes, larger for tiers with adults and small for chicks. You will also need two metal or slate sheets that will serve as trays for litter and gutters that will become drinking bowls. If you have plastic sewer pipes, you can cut them lengthwise and get the same drains.

We make a stable frame from a profile or timber, stretch the first mesh at a distance of 50 cm from the floor. Next, after 50 cm we fix the metal sheet, after 20 cm we tighten the mesh again. We repeat the procedure twice and get a three-level “rack”. To turn it into a cage, we use the same mesh to make perimeter fences separately for each tier.

We fix the gutters on both sides for each tier. You need to install plugs on the sides. One drain will be used for water, the second will be filled with food. This option is not suitable for chicks. They will climb into gutters with their feet. Therefore, you can buy special drinkers and feeders at any pet store.

Walking area

For those who decide that confining broilers in cramped cages is too inhumane, they can organize a place for walking. By the way, this is only relevant in the warm season. But in this way, the more the broiler moves, the slower it will gain weight.

So, you can organize a walk right next to the chicken coop. The only thing you need to do is provide sufficient fencing so that broilers do not scatter throughout the yard. To do this, you can drive several beams or profiles left over from the installation of cages into the ground and stretch the mesh. Some simply knock pallets together, placing them against the walls of the chicken coop.

It is desirable that the broilers “graze” not on the asphalt, but have at least some layer of soil, and ideally a lawn. They should be released for walking only in dry weather. After rain on wet ground, the bird may get sick. We also must not forget about other animals that may show interest in the bird.

Strengthening and insulation

From about mid-autumn, depending on the region, the walls of the chicken coop will need to be insulated and heating installed. There are often gaps between the frames and the roof. If they are, it is better to blow them out with foam.

To insulate walls, the easiest way is to take regular polystyrene foam. In this case, you need to calculate so that the bird cannot reach it. You can also sheathe the outside of the chicken coop, but then you will have to apply an additional protective layer for the insulation.

If the chicken coop was built with 12 square meters, it will be enough to purchase a small convector, which, according to the instructions, should be enough for the volume of the chicken coop. Another source of heat loss is the cracks in the front door. If they are, you need to cover them. For example, put a rubber band or foam rubber on the door, which will fit tightly to the door.

Broiler chicken coop care

As already noted, the health of broilers cannot be called strong. Due to the rapid growth, their bones and immunity do not have time to adapt, plus the crowd in the chicken coop does not create the most favorable conditions. Therefore, care and cleaning of the chicken coop should be done on a regular basis.

In fact, if you use the above tiered design, cleaning takes no more than 10 minutes. You need to sweep the droppings from each flooring into a bucket, wash the drinking bowls, change the water, add food and sweep the floor. Carry out wet cleaning once a week. Actually, that's all. Before bringing in a new shift, the cage must be washed completely and allowed to stand for several days.

Conclusion

Yes, not everyone can build a real full-fledged chicken coop. In a full-fledged all-season version, the initial costs will be quite significant and it will not be easy to recoup them. It is worth mentioning here that today’s feed prices, the initial cost of chickens, plus small expenses do not make it possible to recoup small batches. In order for broiler breeding to recoup the costs of construction and maintenance, it is necessary to raise at least a hundred chickens per month.

You can use drawings of simpler designs intended for the summer only if you have a strong desire to eat organic meat. There can be no talk of commercial benefits.

As a rule, city dwellers grow vegetables and plant fruit trees in their dachas. But more and more people want to acquire some kind of living creatures. An excellent option would be to build a chicken coop with your own hands for broilers - photos and drawings, which will be offered in our article.

But first, let’s look at the main mistakes when building a chicken coop.

The first and most common mistake is incorrectly calculating the size of the chicken coop itself. Very often we heard from novice poultry farmers that the initially built chicken coop for 10 or 20 chickens subsequently had to be either expanded or built several more. This is not only not economical in terms of space use, but also looks worse from an aesthetic point of view.
The second point that is also worth thinking through very well is the design of ventilation. If there is poor ventilation in the chicken coop, there will be constantly increased humidity, which negatively affects both the growth of broilers and the productivity of laying hens.
Thirdly, you should not skimp on bedding. The layer of straw or hay should be thick enough to ensure a comfortable temperature in the chicken coop. To make it easier to replace the bedding, you can initially lay linoleum on the floor.
Also, you should not make mistakes with interior decoration. To cover a chicken coop, you should not use materials such as siding, chipboard, plasterboard or insulate it with mineral wool. The best materials for covering a chicken coop are natural wooden materials: clapboard or plywood.

The need to breed broilers in the country with your own hands arises for several reasons. The first is the high price of chicken and the second is the low quality of meat offered in markets and stores. Sometimes they sell chicken that is, to put it mildly, not the freshest. And sometimes fattened with the help of drugs that accelerate growth, but negatively affect the taste and nutritional qualities of the product. Building a chicken coop is a worthwhile goal, and you may need some good advice to make it happen. A screw foundation is the most suitable option.

This is a very negative point: chicken meat is the number one product for the sick, for people on certain diets and, of course, for small children. Chicken broth is prescribed to those suffering from gastrointestinal diseases and can only be beneficial if it is made from high quality meat.

What is the way out of this situation? It's simple, you need to raise broilers yourself and feed them with high-quality feed.

In addition, chicken manure is an excellent fertilizer for the garden and will undoubtedly help increase the productivity of your plot.

Features of the chicken coop

If you equip a normal room, then in a season at your dacha with your own hands you can raise not one, but two or even three numbers of broilers.

Let's say right away that DIY broiler chicken coop different from a laying hen coop. If laying hens are kept all year round and even bred, then broilers are kept for only two months, and then they are slaughtered.

This does not mean that some kind of hut is enough to safely keep the bird, but the room can be simpler, without much insulation. There is also no need for walking.

Why do some chickens lay snow-white eggs, while others are brown and yellowish?

Broiler birds are lazy and sedentary, which is why many practice keeping them in cages. This method has many advantages, primarily ease of maintenance. But there are also disadvantages, the main one of which is the high cost of a good cell structure. But even if you decide to keep broilers in cages, you still need a good room.

We will tell you how to build a chicken coop with your own hands for broilers in the country, which includes floor-based housing for the birds. The chicken coop for broilers should be built on the sunny side of the site. The sun's rays not only warm the room, but also disinfect the area. Also, by drying the area and room, they prevent the appearance of moisture in which pathogenic microbes can develop.

Like laying hens, broilers have natural enemies, these are small and large rodents, weasels, foxes, cats and kites. And the owner’s task is to prevent them from entering the room in which the chickens are kept.

It is for these reasons that when arranging a home for chickens in the country with your own hands, you need to make sure that it is capital and made conscientiously.

We make it ourselves

A chicken coop for broilers in the country can be made from a variety of materials. Some recommend sheet metal, others recommend sheets of plywood or even sheets of composite materials like plastic. These designs have the right to life, but have one significant drawback.

In rooms with thin walls there are very large daily temperature fluctuations. The bird will be cold at night and hot during the day. This can have a very bad effect on the well-being of birds and, as a result, a decrease in the rate of weight gain.

It is also worth making sure that there is a utility room nearby in which you can store feed and equipment.

Tools and materials

fittings;

concrete mixer;

metal, rubber sheet or piece of linoleum;

nails board.

Step-by-step instruction

Like any building, you need to start building a chicken coop at your dacha with your own hands for broilers from the foundation. Its size depends on how many chickens you intend to keep. For example, for 50 chickens kept on the floor in a country house, a room of 2 by 3 meters is sufficient. This must be taken into account when drawing up drawings.

When digging under the foundation, you need to go about forty centimeters deep, about the same as its width.

A very successful solution for preventing rodents from entering is placing broken glass at the bottom.

We raise the foundation walls above the ground by 30-40 centimeters. This is done so that rodents and other unwanted guests cannot get into the chicken coop. Also, a chicken coop with such a foundation will always be dry.

We fill the floor with cement mortar or lay it out with bricks, and then we need to make a screed.

Making a feeder for broiler chickens

When forcing walls, you need to provide not only space for windows and doors, but also for ventilation and installation of roof joists.

We lay down timber or logs. Before laying, they must be impregnated with a composition against bark beetle, rotting and fire.

Now it's time to lay the roof. Here the choice is yours; it can be slate, metal sheet or other material. The main thing is that there is no leakage.

Since there is a lot of ammonia in chicken droppings, ventilation is necessary, for this you need to have at least one pipe.

We install windows and doors.

In the summer, in order to better ventilate the room, we leave the doors and windows open. This is necessary, but on the other hand it is dangerous, since either the neighbor’s cat or even a more serious animal can sneak in. To prevent this, special frames made of chain-link mesh should be provided on windows and doors (the mesh should be small). If you can simply nail the windows on the inside, then the frame on the door should be removable.

Now all that remains is to tidy up the floors. First of all, make sure that they are easy to clean. To do this, it is better to lay either linoleum or a sheet of rubber on the concrete. A regular metal one may also work. The main thing is that there are fewer joints because they make cleaning difficult.

Broilers, as a rule, sit on the floor, but sometimes they also don’t mind sitting on a perch. Therefore, you will need to make sure that they are present in the chicken coop. Chickens of meat breeds do not like to climb high like laying hens, so you should not raise the perches higher than 40-60 centimeters above the floor. It is better to place them near the wall so that they do not interfere with cleaning the room.

We fill the floors with shavings, sawdust, hay or straw. It is undesirable to use old straw, since over time it becomes infested with various bugs and microorganisms.

The walls of the chicken coop need to be whitewashed with lime for disinfection. Every time after cleaning you need to treat the room. Now there are special preparations on sale, but if you don’t have any at hand, then a light pink solution of potassium permanganate may be suitable. It can be sprayed using a typical garden sprayer.

Now all that remains is to put up feeders or drinkers and populate the chicks.

Poultry breeding today is not only an entertaining process, but also a very profitable business. Most often, farm owners prefer broilers. This is not surprising, because the meat of such chickens is always tender and juicy, the brood quickly grows and becomes ready for slaughter. Another advantage of broiler chickens is that they do not require strict adherence to the rules of keeping conditions.

You can even breed birds in your dacha or your own plot. On large poultry farms, workers specially hired for this purpose are engaged in the manufacture of housing for chickens. In private poultry farming, making a chicken coop with your own hands for broilers is not difficult. In addition, this option is budget-friendly, which means it will not hit the farmer’s wallet hard.

A simple house for broiler chickens should have dimensions based on the diagram: fifty chicks or a dozen adult birds per square meter of cage.
A country chicken coop should contain several rows of cages stacked on top of each other. The top cage is installed at 1.5 meters maximum permissible height. It is the structure that has these parameters that will be easiest for you to care for.
Even a summer chicken coop for broilers should be equipped with additional lighting devices.
Electric lamps will also help provide such an important factor as a comfortable room temperature. If necessary, they will serve as a good heater for the chicks.
It is advisable to keep the smallest chickens separately from older residents. It would not hurt to install lamps in their cages that would provide both light and heat at the same time.

Features of the location of the chicken coop

If you are just planning to build a home for broiler chickens, make sure that it is located not far from your home. Please also consider the fact that broilers must receive everything they need for a comfortable life.

For example, the ground where chicken coops are located should not be wet. The ideal option would be if the soil is ordinary sand.

If you live in an area with clay soils or swamps, dry the soil as much as possible before construction and fill it with plenty of sand. Otherwise, you cannot avoid frequent illnesses from boilers.

If you are making a chicken coop for broilers with your own hands, focus on the sunny side. It is best if the windows of the building face southeast. This way, the broiler chicken house will always have enough sunlight and heat. The importance of sunlight lies in the fact that if there is a lack of it, the bird can be attacked by ticks or it will begin to get very sick.

Also think about how to properly protect the home of broiler chickens from drafts. The wind should not roam freely around the chicken coop, as this poses a threat to the health of the brood. For protection, you can build another wall or enclose the chickens with a vine fence.

In addition, the design of a chicken coop for broilers should provide space for them to walk. A medium-sized lawn is ideal. It is also advisable to organize a canopy for the summer, where the birds can hide from the scorching rays of the sun. Violating the rules when building a barn can lead to the chicken getting a lot of unpleasant diseases or starting to lay eggs worse.

Materials for creating a chicken coop

You won’t have any problems with the question of how to build a chicken coop with your own hands if you take care of the necessary materials in advance. At first, those new to farming do not need a poultry shed. They buy a brood in the warm season and set up an area for the chicks in their garden or lawn.

However, when it comes to more serious breeding, you have to make a plan on how to make a chicken coop for year-round keeping of birds.

When selecting materials for construction and choosing tools, focus on the quality of the future poultry house. If the chicken’s housing turns out to be an ill-conceived and unreliable design, then you will be the first to suffer losses. The list of materials to start construction looks like this:

wall covering – bricks, plywood sheets;
pouring the foundation - cement, wood shavings;
roof construction - tiles or slate sheets;
wooden slats that will block different areas of the room;
parts that allow you to fasten the main parts of the structure to each other;
brackets for fastening drinking bowls and feed containers.

What other equipment you will need when building a barn at your dacha with your own hands is an individual question. It all depends on the project you have drawn up, according to which the construction will be carried out.

Chicken coop for broilers - building it step by step

First of all, you must develop a project for the future structure in order to clearly determine its dimensions. Before you build a chicken coop for broilers in the country, you need to allocate the required amount of space for it.

Also decide how many cells the building will contain. The most universal cage dimensions are 1 m long by 0.5 m wide. The workflow itself looks something like this:

To build a broiler coop, you first need to rebuild the walls and pour the foundation. Remember that the broiler shed should be slightly higher than the laying coop. In the first row there will be massive cells. Take care to seal any holes or cracks in the walls - some types of rodents are not averse to your birds.
As for the floor covering, a clay or concrete screed is made. Before forming the floors, pour wood shavings mixed with broken glass around the entire perimeter of the room. Broilers will feel safe, because predators, as a rule, will dig into the barn with your birds.
The next step is installing the roof. It is advisable to insulate it regardless of the type of building. A hydrobarrier will help you well in this matter. A well-built roof will help maintain a constant temperature in the broiler growing room.
Do not lose sight of a very important detail for broiler chickens - ventilation. To raise a healthy brood, it is necessary to organize window openings and vents in the barn for ventilation. Please note that the window size must be no less than 12th of the floor area.
Install a mosquito net on each window. Insects sense chicken droppings very well and flock to its smell. A small midge or mosquito can clog a chicken's nasal passages, which can lead to its death.
A height of 20 cm from the floor is a good place to make a few more ventilation holes. The bottom will serve to release foreign odors from the barn. One more thing: near the ceiling you need fresh air to enter the coop. In winter, these openings are closed to prevent the broilers from freezing.
What happens next depends solely on the project budget. For example, the inside of a broiler house can be treated with plaster or lined with plywood.

Regardless of whether you already have broilers or are just thinking about breeding them, you will be faced with the question of housing for broiler chickens. In the summer season and with a small number of chickens, you can arrange a place for the chicks to live right in the pen on the street. This is considered acceptable in warm weather.

However, as soon as the brood becomes larger or cold weather sets in, you will have to think about building a more serious structure. Making a chicken coop for broilers yourself means saving a significant part of the budget allocated for poultry breeding. Thanks to the above materials, you will not have any difficulties with this idea.

An example of a fairly profitable modern farming business is the breeding of meat chicken breeds. Many poultry farmers choose broilers. This breed of chicken can gain a lot of weight if fed well. However, in addition to intensive nutrition, it is important to maintain the correct conditions for keeping poultry, taking into account some of the specifics of their rearing, fattening and stocking density. To do this, you need to understand in detail how to build a chicken coop for broilers.

First, you need to understand what distinguishes a broiler chicken coop from buildings for ordinary laying hens. It is important to understand that, first of all, the distinctive features are based on the different process of keeping laying hens and broilers. Laying hens are more restless birds than broilers, and the latter are more voracious. They also do not need to be allowed to go for walks. In addition, ordinary chickens are bred mainly for their eggs and kept for a long time; broilers are slaughtered within 2-3 months, so they do not need places for nests, which is the first and one of the main distinguishing features of such chicken coops.

Specific features of broiler chicken coops

do not require nesting sites;
minimum space requirements;
warm structure;
ventilation of the room and absence of drafts;
lighting of natural and artificial types;
comfortable floors;
places for cells.

Advice! Feeders in broiler coops and drinking bowls should be placed in different corners of the building.

Video - Chicken coop for broilers

Methods of breeding broilers in chicken coops

There are two ways to keep broiler chickens in chicken coops:

cellular;
floor

The choice of method depends on the number of future poultry. Due to low costs, floor housing is preferable for large numbers of birds in private farming. In large-scale industrial poultry farming, cage breeding is now increasingly gaining popularity.

Benefits of Cell Breeding

Keeping broilers in cages significantly saves space in the room. Consequently, the cost of electricity used to heat the chicken coop, its lighting, and ventilation is reduced. Due to limited contact of birds with each other (neighborly contact), the risk of infectious diseases is reduced. Rational consumption of feed leads to savings due to the fact that the bird does not scatter it on the litter. Restriction of movement leads to accelerated growth of the bird's weight.

On a note! Keeping them in a cage speeds up fattening by 3-5 days.

Advantages of outdoor breeding

The main advantage is that there is no need to buy cages and equipment for them. This method also allows you not to remove poultry droppings on a daily basis, but to do it less often due to floor bedding. There are no problems with the paws, which develop when kept in cages. The quality of chicken meat is higher.

Broiler chickens are placed in a special box - a brooder, where they feed and receive the necessary heating and lighting.

A newly born chick needs a warm, bright atmosphere and regular feeding. In the natural environment, this is facilitated by chicken, and when kept at home, it is recommended to use a special room for birds - a brooder. It is very easy to build it yourself: at home or on a livestock farm. In this article we will take a closer look at how to make a brooder for chickens with your own hands.

How to choose a suitable place?

The choice of area for construction should be based on the following key points:

The chicken coop should be located away from noisy roads.
It is better to build the structure on a dry, elevated place.
The shadow of trees and nearby buildings should not fall on the windows of the chicken coop and its southern part.
The building should be tilted slightly in a southeast direction.

Let us explain the reasons for these recommendations. Many meat breeds are sensitive to loud noises and nearby traffic will make broilers nervous, which will reduce weight gain. An elevated place will help keep the room dry. In low-lying areas, water from rain and melting snow can accumulate, which will increase the dampness inside the chicken coop and contribute to the formation of mold, the growth of bacteria, and increased illness in chickens. The best option is sandy soil. If your site is swampy or clayey, then before construction it should be dried and sprinkled with a layer of sand. The shade from the trees will block the light and reduce the temperature balance inside the coop. Tilting the building to the southeast will make it more exposed to sunlight.

Advice! If there are strong winds on your site, then it is worth building a fence or planting a hedge of weaving plants on the side of the wind so that there are no drafts in the chicken coop.

During installation in practice, much fewer problems arise than at the design stage. An error in the design can make the process significantly more complicated. However, if the project is designed correctly, the correct drawings are selected and good materials are purchased, then it can be implemented in a relatively short time with little money.

Do-it-yourself installation has a number of advantages:

Only you are responsible for the quality of installation work, doing everything conscientiously and firmly.
You save on installation costs and gain experience that will help you in the future operation of the structure.
During the installation process, you can refine the design data based on your new ideas.

At the design stage of the chicken coop, it is important not to make those gross mistakes that may require reworking the entire structure of the building or create additional installation problems. Let's look at the most important design mistakes in broiler chicken coops.

Lack of rodent protection

When designing, you must take into account that the chicken coop must be raised at a distance from the ground. The insulation layer must not be allowed to come into contact with the ground. This can lead to a threat from rats, which are able to chew through the tree and climb inside. It is recommended to fill the lower zone between the insulation and the soil with broken glass. Mice simply will not be able to dig close. Also, direct contact with the ground can pose a risk of flooding.

The appearance of rats near the chicken coop becomes a big problem. Gnawed holes and stolen eggs are not the biggest troubles from their neighborhood. Many farmers are interested in the question: how to deal with rats in a chicken coop? In this article you will find the most effective ways to get rid of rodents.

Prices for rodent protection

Rat protection

Using unsuitable materials

Experts do not recommend using isoplats, plasterboard sheets, PVC plastic, or chipboard for cladding. They have the ability to accumulate moisture, which makes them easily destructible materials during heavy rainfall. At the same time, they can release toxic substances that are dangerous to birds. Mold can also form, making chickens sick.

What you should pay attention to when installing a broiler chicken coop:

The chicken coop must be safe - protected from rain, hail, snow, and predators.
Have a good foundation.
Be fireproof.
Be built from environmentally friendly materials.
Well insulated.
Have a ventilation or ventilation system.
Do not have drafts or cracks.
Heat with combi or wood stoves.
Be well lit.
Sit on a hill.

On a note! You can often hear that a broiler can grow in 1.5 months. up to 1.5 kg. This is not entirely true if you intend to raise birds at home. This growth can be achieved in factory-farmed poultry farming using antibiotics and growth hormones. In fact, broiler chicken for 1.5 months. reaches approximately 800 gr.

Necessary materials and tools for construction

To build a wooden insulated chicken coop you need to have the following approximate list of materials:

wooden beam 100x50 and 100x100 mm;
insulation;
roofing felt;
cement;
brick;
nails;
pebbles;
crushed stone;
board 20 mm;
construction resin;
metallic profile;
mineral wool;
staples;
self-tapping screws;
roulette;
building level;
saw;
screwdriver;
drill;
hammer.

Prices for timber

Wood, plywood and brick are usually used to construct wall coverings. The foundation requires sand, slag, cement and wood formwork. Roofing material and slate are used for the roof. Wood slats are used for partitions and rafters.

Video - DIY chicken coop

Chicken coop drawings for broilers

We invite you to familiarize yourself with the most interesting drawings of chicken coops for breeding broiler chickens.

The first option involves a large spacious enclosure, a place for perches and a vestibule.

In the second picture you can see the calculation drawing for a broiler cage with a feeder.

The following drawing is made in projection and also assumes a large closed enclosure.

If you plan to seriously engage in broiler poultry farming, then the version of the drawing for two tens of thousands of birds will be interesting.

For many farmers, a drawing for making a multi-tiered version of cages will be extremely useful.

In the last picture you can see a detailed detailed drawing of a broiler chicken coop.

Drawing No. 6 - Detailed design of a chicken coop

How to make a chicken coop for broilers with your own hands: tips for beginners

It is better to make the flooring in the form of concrete or clay concrete screed. Before pouring it, you should sprinkle the perimeter of the future building with a mixture of broken glass, sawdust or shavings.
Water barrier film helps to insulate the roof and keep the chicken coop free from moisture.
In northern latitudes, the thickness of the main walls of the chicken coop should be from 20 cm.
Don't forget to make windows in the chicken coop. Good ventilation will help keep your bird healthy. You should also take into account that the size of the windows should be at least 1/12 of the base area of the chicken coop.
Take the time to put mosquito nets on the windows and vents. Midges and mosquitoes are very attracted to the smells of chicken droppings. For chickens, they pose a mortal danger because they can get into the nostrils, which can cause the bird to suffocate.
The bird develops better under yellow lighting, which is characteristic of sunlight in nature. Regular incandescent light bulbs meet this requirement.
Make ventilation holes in the walls (20 cm from the floor) and ceiling. This will significantly reduce unpleasant odors indoors and increase air circulation. In winter, they are closed to maintain a constant temperature inside.

Instructions for building a chicken coop for broilers

Drafting

The first step at this stage is to determine the size of the planned structure. It is necessary to take into account the number of birds that will live in the chicken coop, and the characteristics of the building materials used during the construction process.

If the area for construction is limited, the requirements for the bird landing area should be taken into account. This breed of chickens does not need a lot of space to roam.

When planning a site for construction, you can use these recommendations for planting birds. In addition, a multi-tiered cage system can be used to save space. In this case, the upper tier should not be raised from the floor by more than 1.5 m.

Pouring the foundation and laying the floor

Before pouring, we dig a pit to a depth of 40 cm. Next, we lay supporting horizontal beams made of 100x100 wooden beams at a distance from each other in the formwork of 20 cm and fill them with sand-cement mixture. If you plan to use it exclusively in the spring-autumn period, then an option with a depth of 20 cm is allowed.

Prices for cement and basic mixtures

Cement and base mixtures

Our foundation should rest for 3 days. After they have passed, we check how dry it is. It may take some more time. Once you are sure that the foundation is dry, you can begin installing the floor.

The most suitable flooring material is wood, since it can retain heat for a long time and protects against sudden temperature changes. For waterproofing purposes, before installing a wooden floor, we lay sheets of roofing felt around the entire perimeter. We place the first crown, aligning the ends of the beams. Then every half meter we place logs on the edge. The space between them must be filled with insulation. Then we install the floorboards using the tongue-and-groove method.

You can insulate the floor using a bedding of hay mixed with peat or sawdust. The thickness of such litter should be up to 40 cm. It is important to remember that this type of litter contributes to the accumulation of ammonia vapors that are released from the droppings. These fumes are poisonous and the chicken coop must have a ventilation system.

Advice! A slightly sloping floor will help with cleaning the coop as water will drain into one corner along with dirt.

Video - Arrangement of a chicken coop for broilers

Construction of walls

The next step is building the walls. An important role of walls is to retain heat. It is recommended to make them from a frame made of beams. We install the walls at a height according to your drawing, leaving openings for windows and ventilation. Upon completion of fixing the beams, it is necessary to cover them on both sides with boards or plywood.

Advice! For normal brightness of natural light, the windows in the chicken coop should be equal in area to a tenth of the entire floor area.

The walls can be not only wooden, but also made of brick or concrete. In this case, their insulation is even more important.

Insulating walls in a chicken coop

Before starting work on upholstering the wall frame with plywood or boards, you should understand which side the insulation layer will be attached to. It is better if it is on the outside, as this will protect the walls of the chicken coop from freezing, and they themselves will not become a cold accumulator. Insulation with a thickness of at least 5 cm is laid between the frame beams.

In order to eat fresh eggs and poultry all year round, it is necessary to properly insulate the house for laying hens, providing them with a comfortable winter. In our article you will find step-by-step instructions for insulating walls, floors and roofs. And also everything about installing a heating system in a chicken coop.

Thermal insulation material used for wall insulation:

sawdust and shavings;
straw;
mineral wool;
Styrofoam;
polymer filler;
foam rubber

Prices for mineral wool

Rockwool mineral wool

The most commonly used is mineral wool. The choice is determined by its high elasticity, which allows you to seal all the cracks. To avoid moisture ingress, it is covered with a vapor barrier and windproof film, secured with a construction stapler and slats are stuffed on top. For external decorative upholstery, you can use boards or siding.

Cheap and effective materials are moss and pine sawdust. The first one perfectly absorbs moisture and fights unpleasant odors. In the second case, the disinfectant and insecticidal properties are enhanced. Of the two options, we recommend choosing the latter. Sawdust is close to mineral wool in its thermal insulation properties. To slow down the decay process and reduce the risk of fire, they are mixed with copper sulfate, slaked lime and boric acid. The thermal insulation mixture is laid between two layers of boards, which are installed at the stage of wall construction. A factory analogue of this method of insulation can be a wood block.

Roof structure

When our walls are erected, we begin to build the roof. We make the roof from hard wood and lay roofing material around the perimeter. Do not forget to treat wooden structures so that insects cannot settle in them and increase their moisture resistance.

First we lay the flooring, then we attach the ceiling beams of the gable roof at an angle. The design of the gable roof makes it possible to avoid the accumulation of snow and rain, which additionally protects against high humidity in the room. The flooring must be insulated. There's nothing complicated about it. Expanded clay or ordinary coal slag can serve as insulation. We attach roofing felt sheets to the beams, then cover everything with slate or similar roofing material.

An important element in the roof of a chicken coop is the ventilation pipe. Its diameter is usually 20 cm. The length of the pipe must be at least 2 meters. We make a hole in the roof of the required diameter into which the pipe is inserted. In the chicken coop it is recommended that she protrude 20 cm.

On a note! The optimal air humidity should be 60-70%, and the temperature 12°C -16°C.

Interior work

The chicken coop construction process is almost complete. The final stage is to carry out internal work, such as installing electricity, installing a heating system, if required, installing broiler cages, feeders, drinkers, and laying out bedding.

A Buleryan stove, electric heating, or even pyrolysis boiler equipment can be used for heating. It is recommended to plaster the walls and cover them with lime. In the future, whitewashing should be done when replacing a batch of birds. Rodents and dangerous predators often sneak through cracks and uneven areas in floors. Check and be sure to seal with cement-sand mortar anything that poses such a threat.

Feeders are available in two types: hanging and floor-mounted. If in the first case only a few chickens can feed from one feeder, then the second type allows many birds to feed at the same time.

On a note! For normal intensity of artificial lighting, it is better to hang lamps at a height of 1.5-2 m from the floor, based on the calculation of 3-5 W per 1 sq.m of floor area.

Inside the chicken coop should be equipped with special baths with sand (or fine clay) and ash. Chickens can swim in them. This is necessary to maintain their feathers in normal condition and protect them from ticks and other insects. The baths can be made from ordinary plywood or any container with a wall height of 15-20 cm can be used. You can add a little garden lime to the mixture.

Before starting chickens, the floors can be sprinkled with fluff lime. 0.5 kg of lime is enough for 1 sq.m. The bedding is placed on top with a thickness of about 5 cm.

How to make your own feeder for broiler chickens

We will need a large diameter polyvinyl chloride pipe. Prepare a tee, plugs and your tool with which you will cut the pipe. First, we cut it into pieces: 70, 20, 10 cm. We put a plug on a 20-centimeter piece, which will become the lower end of our feeder.

We put the tee on the top with its side. We insert the longest pipe and close it with a plug. We insert a 10-centimeter section into the remaining part of the tee. We attach the made device to the cage with the bird and pour food into it.

How to make drinking bowls for broiler chickens yourself

It is not at all necessary to buy store-bought drinking bowls. Let's try to make a nipple on our own in a few minutes. We will need: a plug, a plastic pipe - 1 m, a nipple.

First of all, we will drill small holes in the pipe at intervals of up to 25 cm. As a result, you should get at least 4 drinkers. We make a thread in the pipe by screwing a thread-cutting tool into it. We connect the two parts of the pipe. We place a prepared plug on one end to prevent water from draining. On the other we place a knee at an angle of 90°. The reservoir will be a small piece of pipe, which we will connect to the unoccupied end of the elbow.

Broiler drinker

We wrap the nipple well with a sealant and screw it in to the edge. This completes the creation of the drinking bowl. All that remains is to test the structure for possible water leaks and seal them.