[DanHibbert]

Hello The Accidental Smallholder Community,

Let me introduce myself, my name is Dan and I am a Product Design Engineering student at Loughborough University. Having farmers in the family I am no stranger to keeping chickens, from collecting the eggs on visits to the farm at a young age to getting involved with my parents more recent chicken keeping (which is now in danger of becoming a small holding - sound familiar?) I would say I have got the basics covered.

So what brings me to this forum?

For my design project this year I have decided to look into the design of chicken houses. Now with my own experience of chicken arcs, DIY shed conversions and building small houses from scratch I know that everyone has their own range of experience with different types of housing and that the majority of you would have had ago at making your own at some point.

For this project I have decided to focus on designing a product to accommodate 2-4 chickens which would be aimed primarily towards first time chicken keepers. The idea behind this is that a single household could keep 2-4 birds using my product to produce enough eggs for the household and enjoy the benefits and experience of having fresh eggs straight from their own garden. I feel that the enthusiast / smallholder market is more likely make their own or buy /convert larger product to meet their specific needs but may be interested in a smaller product for those occasions where a broody hen needs to be separated, inheritance of a handful of birds from neighbours, trailing quail keeping and the various other antics that happen on occasion.

As you will probably know, for hen keepers looking to buy hen housing, there is a lot of choice; from kit builds, arcs, miniature hen houses and converted sheds to really high end, purpose build products. In my mind I want to particularly target the potential chicken keeper who likes the idea of keeping their own birds for eggs but, without the correct guidance, background knowledge and experience, would be overwhelmed by the options available on the market.

In addition to my own experience I am eager to see how everyone else has provided shelter for their own birds. At this stage I am gathering initial research to identify the strengths and weaknesses of existing poultry housing. I am looking for anyone who is willing to discuss their current arrangement of hen keeping. Your poultry keeping can be on any scale, I am not just interested in the small scale back garden keepers. All interest and assistance is welcome at this stage.

I am interested in hearing your opinions on my project and I am keen to travel to meet you and your hens in person as part of my research.  I am based in Loughborough and I am willing to travel to meet people in the Midlands area. I am willing to travel up to around an hour each way to meet any volunteers; if you’re a bit further out but are keen to help I might make an exception.

Please don’t be put off by the thought of being asked millions of questions and having to fill in lots of paperwork, I am not going to be giving out huge questionnaires.

If you are happy to volunteer it would be great if you could;
•Show me around your current hen accommodation arrangement
•Run me through your day to day routine regarding your chicken keeping.
•If you are happy for me to do so it would be very beneficial for me to take notes during our discussion and possibly some photographs.
•Have a short chat around some poultry related issues. 

If you are interested in showing me round your poultry setup please send me a personal message on the forum and I will get in contact with you to establish dates.

Don’t despair if you are unable to help out with the visits but want to get involved with the project, I will be updating you all with my progress and there will be the opportunity for you to contribute in the later stages of my project research. And remember, if you have a contribution please share it on this forum.

Thank you for reading,

Dan

 

[Castle Farm]

Hello Dan.

Poultry keepers have been struggling with housing problems for years, well since the idea of confining birds was thought to be a good idea. Up until then birds were either tethered or left to free-range and roost where they wanted.

Small scale keeper need to concider the amount of room they can give over to poultry and in 50+ years of keeping birds I have not seen any improvement on the old field shelter or Sussex Ark type.

I use grass runs, simple to make, Wind and waterproof.Easy to clean out and the birds even in the bad winter we have had of late came through it all fine.

Grass runs can be seen on my web site.

[HappyHippy]

I'm too far away for you to come and visit, but can I tell you what I'd want ? (as a very picky woman who like things to be practical, functional and pretty)
1) It has to be made of something red-mite proof (think - recycled plastic) and have good insulation values.
2) It has to be pretty (so recycled plastic that looks like wood, rather than plastic - check out Solway recyclings' decking and fence boards to see what I mean)
3) It has to be solid, sturdy and fox proof - no gaps once the door is closed and all ventilation should be covered with 10mm square mesh and the whole house raised off the ground by at least 6 inches to deter vermin.
4) It has to be able to be easily moved - so wheels and a handle or steering type arrangement would make the job so much easier (you could even make it almost like a wheelbarrow  )
5) The run should be detachable, so that if you were to decide to free-range them you could and it would also make it easier to move the house to a new location. I used an 8inch 'skirt' of 2 inch weldmesh round my temporary run to prevent the fox digging under it  You could easily fashion some kind of collapsable run with this attached, so that when it's attached to the house, it's nice and secure but once detached it could be easily folded and stored away.
6) Perches and nest boxes should be of solid construction. For perches, 2inch square battons with rounded corners (not round poles) should be used and they should have a droppings collector below them. The nest box should be dark, easily accessed from outside to collect eggs and be raised from the floor of the house.

That should give you some ideas to be getting on with  Can you tell I've spent a lot of time thinking about this  we've been building our new coop for the last 6 months 
HTH
Karen 

[miccon63]

hi been trying to plan to build a recycle plastic coop for a while but always come up against a brick wall  eg insulation , what kind of plastic, security etc.etc.etc .the cost of some of the ones on-line are day light robbery so will be keeping a keen eye on this post 

[lachlanandmarcus]

I would just add that I agree with there being some kind of integral or detachable run. In the event of another bird flu outbreak it may be compulsory to have a covered (or cover-able) run to contain all domestic fowl. eg altho my chooks have a 50, electrified netting pen round their house on wheels, I do also have a small netted run (including the roof) in case of having to keep them shut in. This could be covered with a board to exclude wild birds/droppings.

[nicandem]

hi been trying to plan to build a recycle plastic coop for a while but always come up against a brick wall  eg insulation , what kind of plastic, security etc.etc.etc .the cost of some of the ones on-line are day light robbery so will be keeping a keen eye on this post 

have you considered stock board?  about £35 for a 8 x 4 sheet of 6mm... am considering using it to make one.

[DJ_Chook]

hi been trying to plan to build a recycle plastic coop for a while but always come up against a brick wall  eg insulation , what kind of plastic, security etc.etc.etc .the cost of some of the ones on-line are day light robbery so will be keeping a keen eye on this post 

have you considered stock board?  about £35 for a 8 x 4 sheet of 6mm... am considering using it to make one.

I've made several. I bought a Solway arc & I am disappointed in how it leaks around the perches and the slots so I built my own. 4 houses later I have a finished design. I used that recycled plastic 'stokbord' that's a brand name product. It was approx £30  for a 8ft x 4ft 6mm sheet. I used 12mm for the ends and 9mm for the floor, the arc was 6mm. I also base them on a plastic lumber frame which is ridiculously priced stuff to buy. For a 4ft x 4ft arc with all the fittings it was costing me £200 to make, £50 of that was for the plastic lumber base alone. Then selling them for 250-300. Stick it on a wooden frame and at £150 it's an ok price. Manufacturing it to a good enough retail standard was difficult. I don't make them anymore, unless asked to. You might have recently seen one of mine previously on ebay I've attached a picture of the 8ft x 4ft. If you want any of the techie/manufacturing details PM and I'd be more than willing to offer some guidance if you want to make one.

[CameronS]

my personal preference is something like a shed, where you can stand up and move freely for cleaning, preferably have removable perches.

My shed has a 2.5 foot deep and full width of shed "hall" before you get to the sleeping quarters so i can store equipment/feed.

Also deatchable/removable nestboxes for easy cleaning

[ellied]

I only got my first hens this summer, 4 to start and currently 8 - I have little experience by comparison to others on here, but perhaps my value is in having recently been one of those people you are trying to appeal to and design for!  And also a single person of middle years and with a few creaks

First off as you say all the options are confusing to a newbie and the over-riding feeling is that the products on the market are very expensive when you are starting out because you want to get going with just a few 3/4 hens which is about a £50 investment to try out a new idea.  And £250-400 appears outrageously expensive for an experiment you are worried you might not manage.  Particularly when runs etc are extra!  While material and labour costs are no doubt high and fully justified, this single cost alone put me off for 2 years of wanting to have my own layers.

When I did buy, I bought as big as I could for as cheap as I could - what I got cost me £130 for supposedly a 12 bird coop but it's ok for 8 and maybe if you had bantams it would be fine for more.. but novice buyers might not know that and be misled..  The upside of this is that I could afford to have a go so if you can provide an entry level coop it needs to be affordable and maybe compromise on the design until people are confident they want more..  The Eglu range is marketed to the back garden yummy mummy market and is outrageously pricey but they will go for it because it looks funky and has luminous colours.  I like my hens to have a bit more space than the cheapest of those but I'd love the big one on wheels - nearly fainted when the price was over £800 not even including the hens

Solway are attractive because they're recycling - big plus to me and many "good life" type folks.  But again I couldn't afford to look at their products on the basis of cost - I actually did think recycled would mean cheaper   It doesn't!

What I bought does the job for a beginner, it got me going and keeps them dry and safe at night.  It was easy to screw together and tho it isn't robust for moving and the removable litter tray doesn't pull out if there's actually any shavings or dung in the wrong place   I get by because it has openings on all 4 sides that I can reach in to clear the dung - pop holes both ends, lidded laying boxes one side and an equivalent size door the other side as the boxes can be put either side or another one added if you want 4 lay boxes.

What I would like now, with hindsight, is a walk in shed type product as it would save my back and if potential buyers have back pain it really is important.  The ground level arc type things I knew immediately I'd not get in to clean and if I did get red mites to deal with it would be a nightmare!  I'm not actually sure I could de-mite the coop I have except by unscrewing the roof but what I'm now looking for is a garden shed type arrangement.

Garden sheds converted - I had seen and admired but lack the skills and tools to make pop holes, add bars etc and I thought at about the same price I'd be best with a coop to start.  Someone that could make a shed-look coop with the adjustments already in - I'd hug them!  But only if the cost was around the same so it'd have to be a design not a buy, adjust and resell at profit job!

I have seen two ideas I love but can't afford as yet - one is a metal grid roofed pen rather like a polytunnel shape and size - if that were available in panels with ends that you could assemble and add length to that would be great, and ideally with a skirt outside at ground level to stop digging foxes..  And not too heavy for a middle aged woman to work with - possibly alone so not massive pieces!  Any coop or 6' high shed could sit inside that and it could move around a field ideally..

And on the coop side, something like what I have but with wheels and handles (wheelbarrow style) which would require probably a tad more base strength than mine has but now mine's inside a hand built permanent pen it's actually wider than the gate so wouldn't travel anyway   Made in recycled plastic, with a removable lid for cleaning/de-miting..

Don't want much - and I can't afford what it would cost you either, but there's my beginner views

[DanHibbert]

Thank you all for your contributions, in particular to ellied and Happy Hippy. The details and feature specifics are very useful & much appreciated.

As I have hade some queries I thought I would provide a bit more detail on my project:

This early step in the project is to get an idea of "customer needs". Before I start producing my first concepts I am trying to get a feel of what current users of existing chicken housing products (brought or homemade) require in terms of function and details on their daily interaction with their chickens and chicken houses. (The two replies from ellied and Happy Hippy were pretty spot on. If you are too far away for me to visit in person this level information is a close second best source of project research.)

At this early stage I want to keep my range of research as wide as possible and gather opinions & experiences of chicken keepers of all scales.

I have been asked if my aim is to design and create my own version of the existing eglu product. In short, no. This is not exactly what I had in mind. At this stage the end result of my project will be a proof of concept prototype and not a design that will go into mass production and retail.

Without wanting to give away to much and influence the responses I get back from the community there is also another angle to te project besides the product design.
I will also be exploring the issues of sustainability. For example: Whilst timbre is a natural and potentially sustainable product (in the sense it can be produced in a managed forest environment), are there more suitable materials that would extend the product life, reduce maintenance and have appropriate potential for life after service (reuse or recycling). Are there recycled materials readily available that would be fit for purpose?

At this stage in the research I mainly want to hear about peoples experiences with their hen house solutions and learn from their successes and shortcomings.

Thanks again to those that have commented so far. All your comments & suggestions are welcome.

[robert waddell]

sustainability    what better than wood we have a Miller of Denny hen house circa early 50s and it is still going strong          wood if looked after will outlast any other product    the modern hen houses are made from thin scliffs of wood to keep the costs down and it is little wonder they buckle colapse and just dis intigrate

[DanHibbert]

That is an interesting point Robert, I will see if I can find some details on this manufacturer.
Out of interest, do you know if the timber is a "hardwood" or would you be able to take a guess at what particular type of wood it is.

This is a great example of a high quality product having a longer life in service than cheaper alternatives. I think you make a good argument that wood, if the appropriate type is selected and maintained during the product life, is a great sustainable material.

Is there anyone else out there who has a longlasting wooden coop that just keeps on going or, on the otherhand, anyone that has moved away from wood looking at alternative coop materials?

[Mel Rice]

I have always gone for a walk-in hen house. The first two were childrens playhouses...first one out grown and the second an end of season showhome offer when the first one wa stolen!!! (we had temporarily moved out for building work, the hens too! We now use a small brick/stone outhouse built against the barn. Walk in for us oldies is great.   As to converting the wooden sheds/playhouses, easy, cutting the pop hole is not hard. Then add a perch and nest box. I have a solid (plastic/old lino covered to ease cleaning) shelf under the perch and the nest boxes rasied but under that.

[DanHibbert]

Thank you Mel.

I must admit thats the first time I have heard of an entire hen house been stolen! 
Thanks for the tip about the plastic & lino covers.

Dan