Do-it-yourself chicken coop for broilers: instructions with dimensions, how to build correctly

Growing broilers is the most common area of chicken poultry farming. Such birds are unpretentious, grow quickly at home, and also have high productivity. One of the most important aspects of raising chickens is preparing and organizing a poultry house. You can build it yourself, but it is important to follow the construction technology. This allows you to save your budget and also take into account all the necessary factors for content. In the article we will look at how to build a chicken coop for broilers on our own, what to look for during this process.

Features of a chicken coop for broilers

Before building a bird breeding facility, you need to understand the main features of such chicken coops and their difference from structures for keeping layers. The process of keeping regular and meat chickens is different and therefore chicken coops also have certain differences.

Common specificities include the following:

lack of nests for incubating eggs;
compactness;
insulated walls;
additional lighting.

Also, a shed for keeping broiler birds should not have drafts that can make chickens sick.

Is it possible to keep chickens of different breeds together

Tetrahydrovit for broiler chickens

Meat and egg, egg and decorative chickens do not differ much in content. Breed features are manifested mainly in appearance and productivity. All breeds of chickens cannot be overfed, they need to walk equally, they have similar lighting requirements. Therefore, it is possible to keep chickens of different breeds together.

Important! If the farm needs to get purebred thoroughbred chickens, then 1, 5 months before the collection of the incubation eggs, the chickens are seated by breed in separate cages or pens. Walking also needs to be fenced off or the roosters should be kept closed.

Broiler breeding methods

There are two common breeding methods for broiler chickens that you should be familiar with.

Cellular method

Some poultry farmers prefer to use the cage breeding method. The main advantage of this method is considered to be the saving of free space in the chicken coop. Thanks to this, it is possible to save electricity spent on lighting and heating the room.

Growing birds in cages limits their contact with each other. This prevents the emergence and development of infectious diseases. The cells also restrict the movement of broiler chickens, so that they gain body weight faster.

Outdoor breeding

Sometimes people decide not to use cages and raise chickens on the floor. In this case, you do not have to equip the room and equip it with special bird cages.

There are many advantages to outdoor breeding that is why many poultry farmers are starting to use it. Using this method, you do not have to clean up bird droppings every day. Instead, replacing the straw bedding once a week is sufficient. When breeding birds by the outdoor method, no bins and traces remain on the paws.

What should be the building

A do-it-yourself broiler coop has many advantages over purchased bird housing. Firstly, this way you can significantly reduce construction costs.Secondly, the premises will be adapted for a certain number of birds, and thirdly, self-built housing for chickens is much stronger than store-bought counterparts.

Housing Standard Requirements:

small size;
high quality illumination;
optimal sizes for convenient placement of cells;
reliable protection against the penetration of rodents and predators.

Containers for food and drink should be located in different parts of the chicken coop (in no case in one). To ensure the appropriate temperature regime in winter, it is necessary to install electric lamps. One of the important nuances in building a chicken coop with your own hands is the location. It is advisable to install the room on dry, sandy soil. If the soil is wet, it must be covered with sand, after drying it out.

In addition to artificial illumination, the room should have a sufficient number of windows to provide access to sunlight. Optimal natural light is essential for the health of broilers. To protect the chicken shelter from drafts, some plant hedges along the walls. It is better to build a chicken coop on a hill so that after precipitation the moisture does not accumulate, but flows down.

When keeping chickens in winter, there must be a vestibule in the hen house. It should be insulated from the outside with metal sheets, and a layer of foam plastic should be laid between them and the wall. From the inside, the vestibule is trimmed with sheets of plywood or fiberboard. The roof is insulated with mineral wool. Windows should also be well processed: cover up all the cracks, it is advisable to insulate the slopes if the openings are large.

Choosing the right place

It is recommended to find the most suitable place for placing the chicken coop in advance at the dacha. When choosing a place, it is necessary to consider the following points:

the house should be located away from noisy places;
the structure should be built on hills with solid soil;
you can not place the chicken coop in shaded places near tall trees;
the building is recommended to be located in such a way that its windows are on the southeast side.

Types of poultry houses, general requirements for them

There are many ways of keeping poultry broilers, but there are usually two types of poultry houses used for the household: floor feeding and cage rearing. Both have merits and demerits. The owner of the personal plot chooses the structure that is easier to build with his own hands. Regardless of whether for floor or cage housing, as well as seasonal or year-round use, bird buildings should have the following parameters:

an area that provides convenient care and allows the cultivation of poultry on small land plots;

Outdoor corral option made of plastic pipes for broilers

a comfortable microclimate for chickens, provided with natural or fresh ventilation, heaters in winter and electric fans in hot weather;
good lighting: natural or using incandescent lamps, which not only illuminate, but also heat the room;
the presence of a fenced outdoor yard, which, according to some poultry farmers, is not always necessary for broilers.

How comfortable the broilers are in the room can be judged by their behavior. Chickens huddle together, huddling in heaps, it means they are cold, but if they open their beaks, breathe heavily, spreading their wings, therefore, they are hot. The owner must take care to get the house climate up to date. An indicator of this is the uniform distribution of birds over the entire area, active biting and drinking water.

Materials and tools for construction

When constructing a chicken coop for broiler birds, special tools and materials are used, which include the following:

Brick. It is considered the main building material used in the construction of the walls of the structure.
Cement. It is used to create a solid foundation, walls, flooring.
Boards. Sturdy planks may be needed to make a timber roof frame.
Roofing material. The main waterproofing material that prevents the roof from leaking.

Calculations and dimensions

Before you build a summer chicken coop for 10 chickens, you need to make all the measurements with calculations. Three small broilers will need a square meter of free space. Therefore, if the pen will consist of ten birds, the size of the chicken coop is made at least 2 x 2 meters. If there are ten more chickens, you will have to build a structure measuring 3 x 3 meters.

Having decided on the dimensions, they must make a drawing. It indicates the size of the house, its height and the length of the walls. Also on the diagram, an aviary is marked if the chickens are walking on the street.

How to build a chicken coop for broilers with your own hands

The building of the poultry house is carried out in several successive stages.

Pouring the foundation and laying the floor

To build a solid foundation, they dig a trench 40-50 centimeters deep. Then, inside the pit, horizontal beams are laid at a distance of 15 centimeters from each other. The created structure is poured with cement and sand.

When the foundation hardens, you can start laying the floor. The floor covering is made of wood, as it perfectly retains heat and protects the room from temperature extremes.

Boards must be laid on roofing material, which will protect the chicken coop from moisture.

Construction and insulation of walls

After creating the foundation with the floor, proceed to the construction of the walls. The frame is made of high-strength wooden beams. When installing them, it is necessary to leave small openings for the windows through which sunlight will enter inside. When the beams are installed, they are upholstered on both sides with plywood sheets or boards.

The inner side of the walls must be insulated with foam rubber or mineral wool. Some use polystyrene and wood chips as insulation.

Roof construction

The final stage in the construction of the building is the construction of the roof. Experts recommend creating it from hard and durable varieties of wood. Before laying, all wood is treated with special compounds to improve the moisture resistance of the material. The roof surface is covered with roofing material or any other waterproofing material.

It is recommended to make a gable roof so that snow and moisture do not accumulate on it.

Lighting

There should be enough light inside the chicken coop and therefore it is recommended to think about lighting the room in advance. For a better supply of natural light, 1-2 small windows are made from the south side of the house.

If you need to illuminate the chicken coop in the evening or at night, additional lighting lamps are installed. In this case, they must be suspended at a height of one and a half meters from the floor surface.

Ventilation

Any chicken coop should be equipped with a good ventilation system that will ensure air circulation inside. For this, several small vents are made.

How to drink young animals?

I bought special drops for chickens in the veterinary pharmacy and added them to the water. Someone just adds potassium permanganate, but I did not reinvent the wheel. All young animals, except for broilers, I took on a private backyard. I did what the sellers advised.

I also drank broilers, but with the drugs that were again advised when buying them.It makes no sense to write the name, tk. all pharmacies have different drugs available, ask your local area. But it is imperative to get drunk. I had no losses.

Broiler house interior design

Arrangement of a broiler chicken coop inside is carried out in three stages.

Installation of cells

If broilers are to be reared in a cage method, cages will have to be installed inside the house. They must be installed in such a way that they are located at a distance of 15-20 centimeters from the walls. The cages are placed in several rows 100-120 centimeters high.

Feeders and drinkers

You can make a bird feeder with your own hands. For this, a regular water pipe made of polyvinyl chloride is suitable. In its walls, cuts are made 20 centimeters long and 10-15 centimeters wide. Then the structure is attached to the wall with screws and filled with compound feed.

As drinkers, you can use ordinary metal toes or unnecessary plates.

Litter

The floor inside the chicken coop can be covered with the following materials:

Sawdust. Often the surface of the floor is covered with sawdust obtained from larch, Christmas tree or pine. This bedding has excellent moisture absorption.
Straw. The distinctive features of this material include its warming properties. Also, straw absorbs moisture well.

Possible design errors

People who are building a chicken coop for the first time can make some mistakes.

Missing rodent protection

When constructing a poultry house, care must be taken that the structure is raised from the ground at a distance of 5-10 centimeters. If the insulation is in contact with the ground, rodents will start inside. They gnaw wood, insulation and infect chickens with diseases.

Use of unsuitable materials

Some poultry farmers use the wrong materials when building chicken coops. These include PVC, chipboard and drywall sheets. All these building materials quickly deteriorate due to the fact that they absorb a lot of moisture.

Can broilers lay eggs with hens?

Broiler chickens are therefore called chickens, because they do not reach their physiological age at which it is possible to lay eggs. For this, a parental herd is used, which is created in order to obtain offspring that gives the maximum yield. Broiler chickens are high-intensity poultry, rapidly gaining weight, they are reared up to two months, further rearing is ineffective. The consumption of feed increases, and the growth of muscle mass decreases, as a result of which it is not economically feasible to obtain eggs from broilers. Therefore, do not expect eggs from broiler chickens. For this, there are egg breeds that are able to provide the farmer with egg products.