Being confined to the house may be safe but it can become very boring and so a project is a great therapy. My daughter has recently moved to Kerikeri and needs a chook house to hold about six or eight chickens. The deciding factor is how many laying boxes are needs and we decided on three and they would be 300mm x 300mm and this decides the length of one side.
The overall dimensions are 1000mm wide x 1200mm long and 1000mm to the eaves and 850mm to the ridge. From then on the design can be sorted out from Pinterest.
A chicken is about 300mm high so we need to accommodate that in the perch and in the nesting box.
Step one is to get some materials.
The overall dimensions are 1000mm wide x 1200mm long and 1000mm to the eaves and 850mm to the ridge. From then on the design can be sorted out from Pinterest.
A chicken is about 300mm high so we need to accommodate that in the perch and in the nesting box.
Step one is to get some materials.
Our son had some sections of fence which he needed to get rid of and these were broken down to recover the wood.
 Next step is to get the design sorted and draw some plans plus download a set of drawings for something similar. |  |
The first part to build is the floor to the right dimensions and the walls can be made to fit the floor. Make to two ends and put them in position with the ridgepole fitted to hold it steady..
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Put up more of the roof joists and make the structure strong. The sides consist of the nesting boxes and the cleaning access door so they can be dealt with later.
I did another drawing of some refinements as the door aperture was too big and it needed some decoration. Here again Pinterest has stacks of ideas to choose from.
With the structure fairly strong the roof can go on and in this case it was a sheet of ply last used for concrete mixing. It was a bit short and so some extra bits were added to make it fit and the watertightness will be solved by felting the roof later.
The door aperture was too large and so I got a piece of ply to cover the hole and a doorway cut into that. The advantage is that the door is a feature and can be highlighted a special shape and painted with a different colour scheme.
The door aperture was too large and so I got a piece of ply to cover the hole and a doorway cut into that. The advantage is that the door is a feature and can be highlighted a special shape and painted with a different colour scheme.
The chook shed design required it to be on legs and also a pair of wheels to make it moveable. I wasn't sure about this and did not have an axle so left it to later. The wheels came from a lawnmower repair and these could be bolted to the legs rather than a complete axle so they can be added now.
The door can be fitted to the frame and the access ramp put in position.
A few bits of wood jig sawed to add some decoration can make all the difference to the overall appearance of the project
There is still the nesting box to be made and quite a lot of finishing to be done including waterproofing the roof, painting and making the nesting boxes but its well on its way.
Chickens need a space of roughly 300mmx300mmx300mm for living space and we need three nesting boxes for eight chickens. The nesting area needs to have easy access and be waterproof so here is what it looks like.
This is what it looks like .
Then I put a coat of paint on the roof to protect it and a pretty yellow door and its ready for delivery.
Then I put a coat of paint on the roof to protect it and a pretty yellow door and its ready for delivery.
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