The Evolution of our Chicken Cottage

I'm really happy with what we have to house our chickens. It provides lots of space, is easy enough to clean, and fits the landscape here in a functional way.  However it took us a while to get here. Allow me to share the stages with you, and maybe I can save you from a few of our mistakes.

First off, the big (and costly) mistake.  That was our starting point.  Buying a pre-fab hen house.

Now I'm not saying this is a bad house. I did a lot of looking around online before selecting this. Is easy to assemble, not ridiculously overpriced like many other similar products, and could be an okay housing option if you are keeping only a few chickens.  I think the biggest issue with things like this is they are always advertised as being able to house more birds than they really should. This house with its 10 foot run, in my opinion, should only house 3-4 chickens absolute maximum- not the advertised 6-9. Even with the minimal amount of birds, they would turn grass into bare dirt pretty quick, and this is hardly a mobile unit. We had 4 hens in here, and there was a lot of bullying likely out of boredom.  The other things that I didn't like include the pull out tray for cleaning the housing- it sounded like a good idea until I actually had it here. If you were to line it with newspaper, it would maybe be okay, but anything more and your track is full of substrate. Also poop since the birds often roosted on the edge of egg boxes. Which was my other trouble with this model. The external egg boxes are raised and make a tempting perch for hens. So they frequently roosted in or at the entrance of the nest boxes. Which resulted in a lot of poop falling along the edge of the tray, or in the nests.  Maybe not everyone's birds get stubborn about roosting in inappropriate places. Maybe this could be your ideal hen house for a very small number of chickens.  It does have good ventilation, and a covered run. It does have external egg boxes with prop bars and decent locking to prevent predators if you like this sort of thing. It just turned out to be a valuable learning curve for us.
So we sold it.
And decided to build our own.
One major advantage to building your own structure is you can make it whatever dimensions you want. The other thing that was a sort of revelation was realizing ways to fit a structure to our landscape.  We are on a slope here- level land is scarce, and creating it difficult. Instead we made a platform.  This creates not only a roomy hen house, but an outdoor area underneath to hang a feeder and set up a dust bath that stays dry.

 
Here's our floor.  After we dug in foundation posts and made sure they were all level, we could make a flat floor to span them.  We used 2 x 6 to give the frame enough support without bowing.  Covered that in heavy plyboard, and topped it off with linoleum stretched and stapled at the edges.  This linoleum is a touch I am especially glad we tried, and I recommend it to anyone building a larger hen house.  It allows me to clean easily- the messes have nothing to stick or soak into and sweep out easily. Our house is a walk-in height which puts any lighting or heating elements far away from the flooring. This is important because if heating elements are closer to this surface, it can release gases under the heat that are not healthy.
Next up- framing the walls!  Another cool thing about making it up on your own is getting to decide where windows and doors go, and how big they get to be.  Not sure how well this photo demonstrates, but the framing covers that edge area of the floor platform where staples were put in to secure that floor covering. Helping to permanently anchor that linoleum and securing shiny staples away from curious beaks. I was happy to design a large window overlooking the mountain view facing East so the birds can enjoy the morning sunrise.  A coop with a view! 

Walls!  These outer walls are MDF that's fashioned to have a nice pressed finish that mimics oak plank.

The inner walls are OSB.  There an insulation gap between them that's the width of the 2 x 4 framing. If you live in a climate that gets very harsh winters- insulation may be a good addition.
The roof is framed, covered in OSB,  tar paper, and then it was time to shingle.  I have to confess that the majority of the framing work ends up being done by Stephen. So any less heavy work is done by me. Here's where I learned to shingle a roof.  Which was a special feather in my cap since I'm a bit sketchy about heights.  But it did indeed get done, and was actually kind of fun- right down to cutting and placing these caps along the peak.

With the structure complete it was time for paint.  I painted the inner walls with two heavy coats of latex paint to seal out moisture or any dirt.  I chose white to keep the inside nice and bright.  And painted the outer walls to seal them against weather.  Due to the house being held up on a slope, I had to get into some interesting positions on a ladder.  I have to be honest- there were a few scary moments.  If you are working on something like this- consider pre-painting!  It will make things easier in the long run!

Although I did have some moral support during the painting process ;) 

 

Here is the house finished up for the most part.  Affectionately dubbed "The Chicken Cottage" 

 Over time we ran into a space problem.  As new chicks were added, we realized that chickens can be vicious!  Adult hens will bully and attack smaller birds.  We tried housing them with a temporary fence dividing the house into two sides.  This did not work for long.  All it took was one bird to find a weak spot in the fence. Two injured birds one morning shocked us, and we knew we had to keep them completely separate. 

And so the brooder wing addition began.  This is constructed just the same as the main cottage, and attached directly to it.  This wing is much smaller to conserve heat for young birds.  We did not add a lining to this floor.  Instead it is painted with a thick coat of sealant to help protect the wood from moisture.

It has sliding windows on both sides to allow for ventilation, and a small 2 inch bar running across the length as a perch for small birds.  Of course the roof needed shingles.  Of course the task fell to me.

The finished wing is worth it though.

Peace of mind and safety for chicks to transition to once they leave the indoor brooder for life outside.  This wing has its own fenced run that younger birds can see and socialize through a shared fence with the main cottage residents.  We keep them separate until they are about the same size.  Then they can integrate without any dangers of much fuss.  I think that them seeing each other during outdoor activity is far less pressure than them being confronted with seeing each other inside their respective homes.  Everyone has been calm and we have had no incidents of trouble since.