The Chicken House

We moved into our new house in December 2016. At the time the Avian flu restrictions were in place  and we used our new stables to house the girls. Moving house with seven chickens was ok; they were really well behaved in the trailer and seemed to be happy with the space and straw in the trailer. It meant also they did not have to be in a box or cage for an uncomfortable period. At the new house they were very keen to get out of the trailer and explore. Dealing with the chickens was easier than dealing with the bees that day! Here is Cerys having a peek at her new home from inside the trailer they were moved in.

I got hold of a caged run for them in the new year which meant we could have them outside a little more, as it had a roof cover on it. The main plan was to build them a substantial and permanent home in the smallest of our new paddocks. At the old house I had built them a great area that kept them safe from foxes whilst having room when we had to keep them shut in. It had all sorts of levels and branches for them to climb on too. But I wanted to improve on that design, make it much bigger and fit a roof that would be much more reliable. The old 4m x 4m area is shown below, just after I had finished building it in 2008.

The plans for the new area were drawn up over winter and I planned to build the new one in March 2017 as long as the weather held off. Thankfully it did and I made sure all the timber, roofing material and chicken wire were ordered in time for me to build it in my week off, so the hens could enjoy their new home. The picture below shows the chicken area just starting. I was working on my own, so I was using lots of timber to hold the walls in place whilst I built the other walls and connected them.

The whole area was planned to be 4 metres by 8 metres, split into two 4 by 4 metre areas. One of these half-areas would be roofed to protect them from them rain and the other side would eventually be covered just in chicken wire, so the rain can get through but the foxes cannot (hopefully). 

...and here is the almost finished area. The roof is on, the chicken wire is done on the sides (not on the roof yet) and the doors are on too. I was pleased with the doors; for the last chicken house I built I bought doors and they were poor. This time I made them myself from scratch and they were SOLID. You can see from the picture above the Omlet Cube chicken coop we use; they are expensive, but easy to clean and after nearly ten years of use it's in a very good state still. 

One of the fun things to build in the chicken area is the platforms and climbing areas. The picture above shows two of the platform I have built for them, one quite low and the other about a metre high. The high one leads to a metre high walking platform that goes around most of the inner wall, so they can get up high and see what is going on.

The picture above shows another angle where the other side of the doors are shown (there are two, one on the outside and one that seperates the two halves if we wanted to shut them in one side or the other). You can also see the platform on this side too. But what did the chickens think? They seem to like it and it gives them lots of room to run about when we have to shut them in; they are protected from the elements and the predators.

Here they are coming in for the first time to inspect my work.