How to build an aviary for chickens with your own hands

0

1701

Article rating

Even before the final decision to breed chickens, you should find out everything about the features of caring for them. The poultry farmer needs to take care of equipping the chicken coop with ventilation, drinkers and feeders: chickens must have unhindered access to food. It is equally important to monitor the health of the birds and regularly carry out cleaning in the main place of their keeping. We must not forget that insidious predators who want to feast on fresh prey can make their way into the yard. In order to protect the livestock from cats, dogs, rats and other predators, an aviary for chickens is needed. How to build an aviary for chickens with your own hands will be discussed further.

Aviary for chickens with their own hands

Aviaries and their purpose

Chicken enclosures are cages that protect birds from predators.

Their design allows chickens to move freely in the open air area allocated for them. And if the perimeter set aside for the aviary is equipped with a canopy or a roof, then the birds will be protected from weather factors: the scorching sun, rain, wind and hail.

It is best to build a structure such as an aviary, right next to chicken coop.

In addition, the aviary is easy to build with your own hands. All that is needed for this is a wooden frame and mesh. Any other durable materials are also suitable: plastic, slate, glass, etc. The main thing is that the aviary fulfills its main purpose. When breeding birds on large farms, more durable metal structures are used. They are more expensive and more difficult to make, but for production purposes they are irreplaceable, because the service life of one such structure with proper care can reach 100 years.

What should be an aviary

It's easy to build an aviary with your own hands. But before starting construction, you should know about the functions that the planned structure should have. These include:

• protection of livestock from attack by predators;
• shelter from the sun, wind, and precipitation;
• sufficient place for chickens to rest;
• free access to food and feed;
• free movement within the designated area.

It is best to choose a place near the main poultry area, so many farmers complement their chicken coops with aviaries.

You should also take care of a suitable floor covering where you plan to dilute the construction. It is important for chickens, adult birds and even broilers to eat greens, worms and insects.

On concrete areas, they will be deprived of this, therefore, ordinary soil is considered the best place for enclosures.

If the aviary does not adjoin the chicken coop, then you should know about where it is better to install it. When choosing a place, take into account:

1. Distance from residential buildings, as well as fruit vegetation. The aviary is located in the most remote part of the yard so that it can be easily seen by a person.
2. Noisy place. The most favorable are areas remote from the place where other birds and animals are kept, as well as from the roadway.
3. Lack of drafts and shade.

The correct location of the aviary is the basis for the comfort of the birds. And their productivity will depend on how comfortable they feel.

The location of the litter in one of the corners of the enclosure also plays an important role. The basis of such a flooring is sand, and the covering can be made from dry hay.

Types of aviaries for keeping birds

Even with a well-organized ventilation system chicken coops cannot provide the birds with sufficient fresh air. In addition, keeping indoors has a detrimental effect on the growth and egg production of birds. The reason for this is vitamin D, which is an indispensable trace element for all living things, so a chicken coop with an aviary is exactly what every farm needs.

The first thing a farmer should decide on is the type of enclosure that will be most effective in the conditions in which chickens are kept. All aviaries are divided into:

• stationary;
• mobile;
• portable.

It is easy to make any design option with your own hands, whether it is a ground-based enclosure or a suspended one. The main thing is to acquire the necessary materials and take into account the advantages and disadvantages of a particular design. Thus, a portable device will only be effective in the summer. Its advantage is the ability to quickly move from one piece of land to another. This is especially effective during the period when the bird has eaten all the vegetation in the area designated for its maintenance.

You can also make a mobile structure. Such enclosures have special wheels at the base, which make it possible to move the structure to another place without additional efforts. But portable and mobile structures have one drawback: the complexity of year-round use. This disadvantage is solved if you make a stationary aviary. It is not difficult to provide proper care for poultry in such a structure, the main thing is to take into account the number of livestock kept: chickens, broilers or ordinary chickens.

Photos help to get to know each type of aviaries better; it is enough to drive the desired name into the search line.

Calculating the required size of a structure being prepared for construction is an important stage in the work.

Any mistake can affect the growth of chickens and their egg production, so you should be aware of the features of this important stage. The first thing to look out for is breed of chickens... Large areas should not be built for broilers. For one individual, 1 square meter is enough. m. If the aviary is designed for ordinary poultry, chickens and adults, chicken coops are calculated based on a proportion of 1.4 square meters. m per head.

What is needed for construction

What material to choose for the future aviary should be determined immediately after choosing a place. The most inexpensive and reliable is a structure made of wood or metal, covered with a mesh. Ease of installation still requires a person to be able to work with a welding machine, if he is interested in the durability and quality of the planned construction, so this must be taken into account before going to a hardware store for materials such as:

• reinforced mesh;
• steel pipes (length - 2.5 m) or wooden beams (dimensions are the same);
• bolts, nuts and other fasteners;
• metal corners (if it is planned to make a welded structure) or a bar of a smaller section;
• wire;
• cement, sand or ready-made concrete dry mix.

As a working tool you will need:

• hammer;
• screwdrivers or screwdriver;
• set of wrenches;
• pliers;
• ordinary building or water level;
• welding machine (if it is planned to manufacture a welded structure).

Anyone who knows how to use the tool can make an aviary with their own hands. But before that, you should correctly calculate how many square meters of the grid will go to strapping the structure.

Aviaries for poultry are selected according to the number of livestock.So, if there are 10 chickens or adult broilers, then the minimum enclosure area is 14 sq. m. Better to round up to 15 square meters. m.

The netting is sold in rolls with a height of 2 and 2.5 m. The required size is calculated by the formula:

S = a * b 2h (a b) 6;

Where:

• a and b - dimensions of the sides of the enclosure, m;
• h is the height of the enclosure, m;
• number "6" - stock of stretching, overlapping tolerance, etc.

Some farmers pull the netting against the sides of the hen house. In this version of the construction, the consumption of the mesh is less for the area of ​​this wall.

Also, chicken coops can be erected simultaneously with the aviary. Such structures also have their advantages.

Construction of the base of the aviary

Anyone who knows how to use a hammer, wrenches and screwdrivers can make an aviary on their own. If all the calculations are done, then you should get down to business:

1. The territory of the future building is marked out and pits 0.5 m deep and 0.3-0.4 m in diameter are dug at its corners.
2. At the bottom of each pit, pipes or timber are installed (vertically, according to level), strengthening the elements with gravel, stones and pouring mortar.
3. Work is stopped until the solution completely solidifies (from 3 to 5 days).
4. At the required height of the ceiling of the structure, the corners are welded (along the perimeter) or the bars are screwed with self-tapping screws so that the result is a stable structure.
5. If the "skeleton" of the building is metal, hooks for the net are welded on the posts and corners every 25-30 cm.
6. A trench 30-40 cm deep and 15-20 cm wide is dug along the perimeter of the location of the walls of the future structure.

After these actions, the mesh is stretched and the base is concreted:

1. Having hooked the end of the net to the hooks, it is stretched towards other posts with hooks (in a wooden structure, the net is tied with wire to a bar).
2. The joints of the mesh are tied with wire.
3. In wooden structures, curved nails can be used to fix the walls.
4. The trench is poured with concrete so that its lower ends are immersed in it.

During the construction process, it is important to give preference to high-quality building materials. The health of a bird also largely depends on what products they interact with.

It is better not to use building materials that are easily damaged. And do not choose something that, due to exposure to the sun or rain, will release toxins or vapors.

How to make a roof for an aviary

Having equipped the chicken coops with aviaries or creating a structure separate from the main place of keeping birds, one should not forget about the protection of birds from natural factors: the sun and precipitation. It is not difficult to save livestock from the negative influence of nature. Chickens and broilers will be saved by a timber-framed roof covered with slate, plastic, tin sheets or other materials.

The construction of the roof begins with tying the walls of the structure with wooden planks perpendicular to them using bolts and nuts or self-tapping screws. Place them every meter. The wooden base of the roof is coated with moisture-protective agents ("Oil", etc.), which will make the structure more durable and can help prevent wear. After this procedure, the coating itself is laid, which is fixed with self-tapping screws to the wooden base located under it.

Thus, building an aviary for your favorite chickens on your own is not particularly difficult, the main thing is to get drawings and all the necessary materials in advance. It will be useful to look at how the chicken enclosures look like in the photo.