← Chickens
H20-02 · Module 2 of 7 · Pages: 19 · Worksheets: 5
The hen house: fixed and mobile
Building a fixed hen house for 10 hens and a mobile one, with sizes, materials, fencing and a shopping list
€9
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Whole series: Chickens, €39
In short
- 0.3 m² of floor per hen inside (about 3 sq ft) and about 10 m² per hen including the run.
- Ventilation under the eaves, no draught on the perches. Damp is worse than cold.
- 13 mm welded mesh (½ in hardware cloth), not "chicken wire": mink, weasels and rats get through gaps bigger than 2.5 cm (1 in).
- Floor raised 30–40 cm (12–16 in) or concreted, so rats can't live under it.
- A mobile hen house gives fresh grass and fewer parasites, but needs daily work.
- The hen house is shut every evening, no exceptions.
What's inside
Chapters
- Fixed or mobile
- What every hen house must have
- A fixed hen house for 10 hens
- Floor and bedding
- Run and fence
- Predators and pests
- The mobile hen house
- Winter and summer
- Building, rules and neighbours
- Common mistakes
- Printable checklist
Worksheets
- Shopping list for a fixed hen house
- Shopping list for a mobile house and fencing
- Fence and cost calculator
- Sketch and sizes of my hen house
- Hen-house care through the year
Fields and checkboxes can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader (desktop and mobile), and the calculator adds up by itself. Filling in may not work in some browsers. A print version comes with the screen PDF.
This guide in other languages: