Over the years as the number of hens increased I’ve built hen houses to accommodate them, after all how hard can it be to knock up a hen house? The latest is n0 7, I think. The early ones were built from plywood and you wouldn’t describe them as pretty. They were designed to make best use of a sheet of ply. In fact one of our friends nick named number 2 the “sub station” after I painted it light blue.
The design improved, no 3 was an un-intentional homage to L S Lowry, in that it’s tall and thin. Next I moved away from plywood to tongue and groove mainly because exterior ply seems to delaminate in no time at all these days. No 3 was a beauty, looks like a Swiss chalet with a tongue and groove roof as well as walls. Probably the prettiest to date, but chuffing heavy though. The side with the nest box, can be completely removed just lifting a couple of hooks, which is perfect for getting in and mucking out. Unfortunately it’s too heavy for Amanda to remove on her own, that plus the fact that I couldn’t find any tanilised tongue and groove and it’s expensive meant nos 4 and 5 used feather edge planking.
At this point I was building the houses in sections, sort of flat pack style, and then screwing them to 3×3 or 4×4 inch posts. Which meant I could assemble them in situ and the legs were built in from the beginning. I had to build them in situ as they were getting too heavy to move on a sack trolley.
The problem with feather edge is that the thin edge splits easily and you end up have to pilot drill all the planks, nightmare, takes forever. No 6 ,my best to date, uses inch planking it ridiculously strong measures 2000mm x 1400 x 1200mm high and probably weights 200Kg. Now 6 months ago that would have been a major problem, not now, a Case 885 with four wheel drive and a loader solved that problem.
No 6 is our biggest hen house, I was under the cosh to finish before the new batch of 25 hybrids turned up. Now it might sound silly now but I hadn’t measured the width of the gate into the Chicken run. Fortunately I didn’t have to admit it as it just fitted in with maybe a couple of inches spare on each side.
Why no 7, good question, nos 2 and 3 are on their last legs and I thought I’d build no 7 before I forgot all the small but important tweaks I’d made to no 6. No 7 is slightly smaller 1900 x 1300. It probably should be 1800 x 1220 to make best use of a sheet of ply which I use for the floor but maybe no 8 will get that modification! I also improved the nest box lids, as they tended to break off on the earlier models.
No 5 – Feather Edge
Almost an ex Hen House
No 7 I think
No 4 – The “Lowry” special
No 7 – The latest incarnation
No 2 The Sub-Station
No 6 – The Biggest yet
No 7 Work in Progress
The “Easy” way to move a hen house
First the back end of the horse box when sideways into the gatepost. We managed to pick it up and straighten things out. The the mud was just too much so the 885 came to help again and towed everything down to the pig arc.
The weaners weren’t too bothered and with a bit of encouragement soon came out to investigate.
Update: 12 Dec 2017 07:21 -11.4C (11.4F) far too cold to take photos! I remember my hand freezing to a metal gate, fortunately I was wearing gloves. Keeping the water liquid for the hens was a every hour on the hour task as it refroze so quickly. We had a run of 12 days where the temperature fell below freezing.
Today is the third cold day in a row, we’ve been out first thing each morning and throughout the day breaking the ice on all the troughs and drinkers for the pigs, sheep and hens.Wisp doesn’t seem too perturbed she still can running over for a fuss.
Dumblehole 