How to insulate a wooden chicken coop. How to build a warm chicken coop with your own hands? What are we going to insulate?

We warm the chicken coop for the winter with our own hands

To keep chickens, it is not enough to have just a shed or a shed on the site. Even if you are going to keep the bird only in the summer, take the trouble to provide conditions for it. In addition to the simplest drinkers, food containers, perches, bathing places and nests, ventilation and lighting should be provided. It is advisable to build with a foundation. It is possible, of course, on piles, but then it will be necessary to provide for insulation from below.

Before figuring out how to build a chicken coop with your own hands, you need to carefully calculate everything. In terms of area, the winter version does not differ much from the summer one: two or three birds can coexist on one square meter of the room.

Experienced farmers say that four chickens can be settled when it comes to egg breeds. But it’s better not to do this, because from May to August, during the warm months of the year, chickens need more space.

The most suitable height is two meters. Here it is not only the convenience of the birds, but also the owners - it is more convenient for a person to be there with a ceiling of such a height.

Construction Materials

Any standard building material is suitable for walls, from brick to timber. It all depends on the imagination and the availability of money. If you are setting up a poultry house for just one year and do not intend to engage in poultry farming in the future, you can get by with inexpensive materials. The warmer the material, the less it will be necessary to heat the room in severe frosts.

High-quality floors should be made of three layers: rough timber, bulk material and finishing. The layer can be the usual gravel. For the roof, choose slate, metal or corrugated board.

It is very important not to lose sight of the arrangement of ventilation. This is a key moment not only in summer, but also in winter. Chickens are very fond of fresh air, they simply need it indoors, and the performance of laying hens directly depends on this.

There are two types of indoor ventilation:

• wall;
• floor.

They differ in the location of the ventilation ducts. In the first case, there are two of them, and one is located near the ceiling, and the other is about half a meter lower at the opposite end of the house. If you make dampers, then on days of severe frosts they can be closed. But "windows" for ventilation can also be made on the floor: several holes guarantee the flow of air from the street. In the cold, they can also be closed, and in the summer only the grate should be left - in no case should it be too stuffy.

Do-it-yourself frame

Surely you have already heard about frame chicken coops, but you don’t quite understand what it is. Everything is simple. Such houses are made of ordinary boards, protruding in the form of beams, and plywood. Instead of the second, you can also use fiberboard and chipboard.

A do-it-yourself winter house can be built in exactly the same way, only then it will look like a layer cake. In this case, the frame is upholstered with insulation, the same foam rubber, and a layer of plywood is stuffed again. To protect against mice, you can also upholster the walls with a fine metal mesh.

Many choose this type of structure. A do-it-yourself chicken coop frame will cost you less than, for example, a brick coop. The beam is not very wide, as it plays the role of a frame, and the walls of the house can be made from cheap materials.

Another plus is in the conditions of Russia - you can choose the thickness of the insulation that is optimal for wintering in a particular region. That is, if you have warm weather in winter, then it makes no sense to insulate the walls with too thick a layer, but to pick up a thin one - any hardware store has options to choose from.

How to heat in winter without electricity and with it?

When deciding how to build a warm barn, novice farmers do the right thing when they think in advance how to heat it. But heating is not necessary, there are different methods for arranging the winter option.

Are you wondering how to insulate a chicken coop for the winter with your own hands? There are five main ways to heat:

• equipment for an autonomous heating system;
• tapping from the home heating system;
• infrared heaters;
• special lamps;
• fan heaters.

It is really possible to heat in winter without electricity, but it will take a lot of effort and time. If the poultry house is small, then it will be possible to insulate the chicken coop for the winter with your own hands in just one or two days. Experts advise attaching a vestibule to the main room of the winter building - it will not take up much space, it will not require a lot of materials and forces, but it will not allow you to freeze and will help maintain comfortable conditions.

You can insulate the walls by upholstering them with banal foam. It is believed that five centimeters of this material, in terms of its heat-shielding properties, replace a brick wall 60 centimeters thick.

Alternatively, you can buy expanded clay, coal slag and even mineral wool. True, all these materials need to be protected from birds - chickens perceive them as food.

Insulate a winter chicken coop as cheaply as possible

During construction, it is important to consider not only the number of heads, but also finances. The construction of a winter chicken coop does not cost a penny, but there are times when the premises are desperately needed, but there is no money. You can use several traditional methods proven by many generations of farmers for warming for the winter with your own hands.

Top 3 cheap materials for poultry house insulation:

• clay;
• sawdust;
• Earth.

Some treat the walls with ordinary clay in the expectation that this method has already been tested by their predecessors. But clay is still much inferior to modern synthetic materials and passes cold air too well, so if you use it, then only in southern latitudes, where in winter the thermometer does not drop much below zero anyway.

Sawdust is sometimes mixed with clay and is also used as a heater, or laid in its pure form between the walls of the same plywood. There is a third option: during the decomposition of sawdust, heat is released, which means that the building is heated in a natural way. To do this, the "carpet" is laid out in several passes: before the first autumn frosts and twice with an interval of a month and a half.

This method of insulation has its additional advantages: sawdust, unlike hay, independently regulates humidity, which means that chickens get sick less. In spring, the bedding can be used in the garden as fertilizer.

The earth for warming for the winter is not used in its pure form. In this case, the house itself is simply built according to the type of dugout, and only the part protruding by half a meter is insulated. It is more economical in terms of money, but not in terms of effort. Therefore, you need to weigh the pros and cons before taking on the job.

Eugene, Minsk:

“The air temperature in the winter version should not be lowered below 10 degrees Celsius. The bird will either turn white, or die, or simply eat all the food, and you will not have time to fill it up. And in general, it makes no sense to insulate a chicken coop for a small number of chickens: you need a winter chicken coop for 10 chickens, no less. If you don’t want to buy more, then take it to your balcony or buy a stove. But it's too expensive."

Andrey, Soligorsk:

How to insulate a chicken coop for the winter with your own hands? I advise you to buy polystyrene foam, it is now cheap. Put them on the outside of the building, and lay opaque foam on top, that's enough. I already know how to heat a chicken coop in winter without electricity. There is experience."

Igor, Saratov region:

“Do not insulate with polystyrene! No way, the mice will eat him! And in general, it is useless to use a heater without a source of that same heat. It is a pity that not everyone knows how to build a winter chicken coop. I build a frame version, and I cover it with a film on the outside to protect it from moisture and wind, and on the inside with waterproofing and steam protection.

Lilia, Ust-Kamenogorsk:

How to build a winter warm chicken coop? Severe frosts in eastern Kazakhstan, where I live, are not uncommon. But chickens can withstand eight degrees of frost, short-term frosts are not a hindrance for them, they continue to rush. If there are few chickens, and the barn is generally bad, you can make a good fixture from a large wooden box. Put it on the bricks, fill it with what you use as bedding, dip a lit light bulb in it and cover it with a lid. The colder it is outside, the brighter the light bulb should be.

Mikhail, Khabarovsk:

“My neighbors keep chickens in the winter without any heating at all. The thickness of the walls is with a brick. Felt is used as a heater, they clog gaps from drafts. In general, do not use expanded polystyrene - toxic and combustible. Better foil insulation or mineral wool.
Watch the video on how to insulate a chicken coop yourself.

Often, in a subsidiary plot or on a small farm, it becomes necessary to insulate rooms, buildings where animals and birds are kept. Usually these structures are not capital, made of plank boards, plywood.

The purpose of insulation is to maintain a positive temperature throughout the winter without heating or with its minimum power - up to 2 kW per building of about 30 square meters, and also to make the insulation extremely cheap. But that doesn't mean bad. Savings occur on the finish, the "brand" of materials, the design of the fastening, and also because it is done by hand.

Simple slots - large heat leaks

It is necessary to insulate the chicken coop, barn, barn in a complex way. Most of the heat escapes with the exchange of air. No amount of heating can resist a draft...

First of all, you need to put a second glass on the sealant, if there is a window. Effective window insulation - for the winter, above the glass of 15 mm, install a plastic film over the slats on the sealant - a double-glazed window for a chicken coop. At a minimum, it is necessary to close the cracks in the windows, frames.

But there should be no non-adjustable gaps under the doors, windows - this is the basis of the insulation of any building.

How to insulate a chicken coop?

Where it is required to insulate a chicken coop, a poultry house or a barn, natural heaters are often “underfoot” in large quantities - straw, hay and wood shavings (small sawdust is not suitable).


So that any living creatures do not start in them, they need to be prepared. You will need lime (fluffy, crumbly) and this is the main cost - one volume of lime per 10 volumes of material. And also - boric acid and copper sulfate - excellent anti-rotting agents.

In order for the material to be used in shields, it must be strengthened by adding 1 part of cement to 10 parts of the material. A solution is made with the addition of antiseptics and mixed with the required amount of chips, hay, straw. It is laid in shields, on overlapping in a wet state, drying gains strength.

It is desirable to prepare hay and straw with a length of 20-30 mm, which is sometimes problematic and time-consuming. But it is the finely cut material that is easy to use and has the best heat-saving properties.

An alternative to all this is the use of foam, a very cheap insulation, especially if purchased in bulk. Sometimes it is cheaper, and most importantly faster and easier to install.

But lining with foam plastic will lead to a violation of vapor exchange in wood, structures may begin to rot and rot over time.

However, more often this is not critical for a chicken coop, besides, vapor barriers have to be used with other heaters, which also negatively affects the wood. Therefore, foam insulation of a barn, poultry house, chicken coop, as a very cheap insulation, can be recommended as a way out of the situation.

We insulate the ceiling in the chicken coop or barn

First of all, we insulate the attic floor. You will have to use a vapor barrier, you can use an ordinary dense plastic film. Without it, the insulation will get wet faster than dry. We cover with overlaps, over the entire area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe overlap with a twist on the walls.


If nothing will be stored in the attic, then it is enough to cover it with treated (but without cement) hay-straw with a layer 20–25 cm thick. But if you plan to walk regularly, then it is better to make flooring on a crate at least 20 cm high, taking into account ventilation. gap (insulation thickness 17 cm).

Polyfoam dense from 25 kg/m cube. with a minimum thickness of 12 cm, it can be laid without a crate in two layers with bandaging of the seams in layers, and on top of it throw boards, plywood, on which it will be possible to walk.

When using foam, it is desirable to seal all the cracks with crumbs on polyurethane glue.

How to insulate the walls of a barn, barn ...

Plank walls need to be converted into shields. From the inside there should be a dense layer that prevents steam, from the outside - more vapor-permeable. If there is no dense layer of material from the inside, then it is advisable to apply a vapor barrier from the inside in front of the straw insulation, as well as on the roof.

The order of work is to install from the outside (or from the inside, which is better?) Vertical bars 12 cm thick with a step of 600 mm and pour organic insulation with cement between them in series with stuffing the missing lining from the bottom up. Cover the outer cladding with something water-repellent, for example, even oil-workout.

A feature of the use of foam on the walls is the absence of a vapor barrier and careful sealing of cracks. Dense foam can be glued to the walls, and on top of it some kind of protection from ultraviolet radiation and water can be glued - the same thin plywood that can be painted on top. The recommended foam thickness is 10 cm.

Thermal insulation of floors and ground

Usually in a chicken coop, a barn, a barn, the floors are made on compacted soil with some kind of backfill. Their insulation often comes down to adding natural (without processing) straw, hay, shavings for livestock. You just need to remember to turn the contaminated layer over, change it in time.


The soil in winter is a natural heater for an outbuilding, a shed, a garage. A positive temperature can be maintained due to the heat of the earth. For this to happen, it is important to insulate the soil along the perimeter of the barn or poultry house to a width equal to the freezing depth in the area.

It is best to dig extruded polystyrene foam from 8 cm thick end-to-end to the foundation. But this is not cheap. Another option is all the same hay-straw 15-20 cm thick, covered from precipitation with shields, slate with a slope, and from earth steam - roofing material. Or simply - hay with a thickness of 50 cm, covered with boards - piled up. Even when wet, such a layer will give the desired effect ....

As you can see, it is really not expensive to insulate a chicken coop or a barn. Such insulation, as a rule, is done by hand, but the laboriousness is not small, and the quality will depend on the thoroughness of execution ....

Want more trouble for yourself? Do a good deed. Remember, I told you how I insulated the slopes of one grandmother in the village (she did not allow her name to be disclosed on the Internet, fearing the evil eye)? So, she needed to insulate the chicken coop.

My phone rings in the morning, I pick up the phone and hear a plaintive voice that begs me to protect the chickens from freezing (where did she get my number from?). Well, I basically love animals, so although I had never done anything like this before, I decided to fulfill this unusual request as well.

Having studied the issue more closely, I realized that the insulation of a chicken coop for the winter, although it has some nuances, in general, differs little from the insulation of other construction projects. Therefore, the quality of what I did pleased both the hens and their mistress.

And so that you can make your relatives in the village pleasant, I’ll tell you how to insulate the chicken coop for the winter with your own hands. Believe me, the proposed instructions will help you earn a lot of pluses in your karma. And, perhaps, some girl from the countryside will pay attention to you, because skillful young people are always highly valued in the village.

Does it need to be done?

Before proceeding to the description of the process itself, I would like to discuss the question of whether it is necessary to insulate a birdhouse for the winter? The thing is, there is no definitive answer to it. It all depends on many factors that need to be taken into account:

1. Climatic conditions of the area where the farm is located. If winters please you with not too low temperatures, then it is enough to simply build a shed from materials with a low thermal conductivity.

And when the temperature drops so low in your village that the beard and mustache on the street are covered with icicles, it is better to take care of the comfort of the birds by insulating the walls with foam or other suitable material.

1. The material from which the poultry house is built. If we are talking about thin or OSB boards, insulation is a must. When you have not been stingy with buying rounded logs or concrete blocks for the construction of a chicken coop, you can limit yourself to installing inexpensive insulation.

In my opinion, the best choice for non-commercial poultry keeping is a frame chicken coop with insulation. This is installed in my country house and the chickens feel great there from early spring until late autumn. Maybe they would be comfortable in the winter, but by December they all turn into grilled chicken.

1. The need for year-round poultry keeping. If you have a large number of chickens in your chicken coop, which are not only a source of meat and eggs for you and your loved ones, but also help you earn money by selling agricultural products, it makes sense to build an insulated house. In all other cases, I would limit myself to light construction without insulation inside.
   It is much easier and cheaper to start new chickens every year, which in the fall are processed into stew or something like that. And eggs can be bought in the store, because their price is not so high.

Therefore, before insulating the chicken coop for the winter, consider the economic component of the issue. Especially if there is no insulation specialist in the immediate environment with whom you can pay with eggs and chicken carcasses.

And if so, how?

A chicken coop, like any other building, consists of several components. Consider how and with what to insulate each of them for the winter. That is, we divide the whole process into several stages.

Stage 1 - Gender

I hope you understand the specifics of keeping animals in general, and chickens in particular. Therefore, you understand that standard insulation technologies can be used here, if possible, then with some changes.

So that the chickens were warm and comfortable, I arranged a litter on the floor of the granny chicken coop. Interestingly, it comes in two forms:

• shallow;
• deep.

So that the birds do not freeze their hooves (sorry, paws), you must use the second variety. If everything is done correctly, the temperature of the floor covering, even in the dead of winter, will be about 27 degrees Celsius, which is quite enough for laying hens.

For arranging deep litter, you can use:

• sawdust and shavings (I adopted this option, since there was a sawmill near the village, where a lot of this stuff accumulated);
• cut grass (hay) or stalks of cut wheat (straw);
• peat mixture with moss.

Did the sawdust bedding like this. I took three buckets of shavings and one bucket of sawdust.

We have coniferous forests around the village, so sawdust and shavings were pine. But this is just good, because pine and spruce contain phytoncides, which have an antiseptic effect. In addition, such chips do not compress over time and pass water well through themselves.

Never let birds into a chicken coop with sawdust litter until the feed bins are full of grain. I made such a mistake and as a result, part of my homemade insulation was eaten by these voracious birds.

Naturally, the bedding needs to be changed from time to time. I recommend doing this once a year. And you don’t have to throw anything away, the collected material is perfect for fertilizing the garden. Such tomatoes grow on sawdust, just a feast for the eyes.

If it is difficult to find sawdust near you, I will tell you how you can use hay or straw, which also have a low thermal conductivity and are suitable for warming poultry houses.

I have a friend who keeps a lot of birds and sells eggs in the market. So he said that mossy peat would be the best option for bedding. This natural insulation has the following features:

• well absorbs the moisture formed in the chicken coop and the waste products of chickens;
• helps to get rid of the unpleasant smell that accumulates in the bird shed;
• helps maintain the health of poultry (it could dry out the paws of chickens, which has a beneficial effect on their condition).

Well, there is no need to talk about the benefits of peat mixed with the afterbirth of chickens. Just selling such bedding as fertilizer can bring a lot of profit.

The process of arranging an insulating layer of moss peat is very simple:

1. First, a layer of bedding 20 cm thick is laid.
2. As it becomes contaminated, a new layer of peat is applied on top, the thickness of which can be made half as much.
3. From time to time it is recommended to loosen and mix the litter, achieving uniformity.

As you understand, the floor is not the only and not the most important surface in a chicken house. You need to take care of the walls. How to do this - I will tell in the next section.

Stage 2 - Walls

You have already heard that not far from the village where I insulated the chicken coop, there is a sawmill. Therefore, it is not surprising that the grandmother's poultry house with a secret name was made of ... logs.

Therefore, the walls practically did not require insulation (the tree already has a fairly low coefficient of thermal conductivity, this is quite enough for chickens). I just bought tow and sealed up the intervents cracks of the log house with it. As a result, it was possible to eliminate the cold bridges that cool the chicken coop, as well as protect the precious layers from drafts.

Of course, it is unlikely that your chicken coop is built of logs. This is rather a unique option. Sheds made of stone blocks, concrete, plywood, OSB boards, and so on can be insulated with conventional heat-insulating materials: polystyrene foam, polystyrene foam, mineral wool, and so on.

The technology of work here is simple and does not differ from insulation, for example, at home. It is enough to equip the crate on the walls, install thermal insulation inside, and then sew it up with clapboard or plywood. Naturally, do not forget about steam and windproof films.

And here I want to talk about how you can get by with natural materials. For chickens to live in an environmentally friendly chicken coop.

In this case, the walls of the chicken coop can be built from two rows of boards, between which a material with a low thermal conductivity is laid. The role of a heater in this case can be played by:

• wood shavings or sawdust;
• fallen leaves from trees (they must be well dried so as not to rot);
• fallen needles from trees.

To avoid the appearance of pathogens dangerous to birds and increase the strength of the building, insulation (for example, pine needles) must be mixed with lime. Take, for example, 25 kg (or buckets) of leaves and mix with 1 kg (bucket) of lime.

It is necessary to lay the insulation between the boards in layers, performing thorough ramming.

Some also insulate chicken coops for the winter with shingles. You need to finish the walls with two layers of material, placing them at an angle of 45 degrees. If you want to make not a chicken coop, but a luxury apartment, do not be lazy and plaster the surfaces of the walls.

I tell you how to do it:

1. We take clay and mix with sawdust. First you need to wet the clay, and then add the filler there. Otherwise, mix everything until smooth.
2. After mixing, you need to leave the solution for several hours (just in time to have lunch). It will infuse, after which it will be much easier and easier to work.
3. We process the resulting plaster walls inside the chicken coop. A 3 cm layer is enough to make your laying hens feel quite comfortable inside.
4. After the solution dries, cracks may appear in some places. To seal them, you need to prepare another solution, consisting of clay and sand in proportions of one to two.
5. Once everything is dry again, the walls should be whitewashed with quicklime to protect the chickens from disease and bacteria.

Sometimes it happens that chickens, due to a lack of trace elements in winter, peck plaster from the walls. To avoid this, you can strengthen the walls with fiberglass or other inexpensive roll material.

Stage 3 - Window and door openings

I probably won't surprise you if I say that most of the heat is vented out of the chicken coop through windows (if there are any) and doors (when you come to collect testicles or catch chicken for soup). Therefore, I did not consider the insulation measures completed until I figured out the window and door.

Grandma originally had a window opening, just curtained with a net. This is good in summer, because it provides normal ventilation of the room and optimal temperature conditions. But in winter it is better to insert a frame with glasses there, which I did.

By the way, after the old windows were dismantled, my grandmother still had frames with glass. I pulled out one sash and made a removable window unit for the chicken coop.

As a result, the layers received a comfortable window with two glasses, thanks to which the room will be very warm in winter. And in the summer all this is easy to dismantle by unscrewing a few screws. (I hope she finds someone else to do it).

Doors also need to be insulated to the maximum. It would be possible to cheat by curtaining the opening with old carpets or bedspreads. But I'm used to doing my job well. Therefore, I designed a frame that fits snugly to the harness, and placed foam inside (a lot of it remained, even after the granny slopes were insulated).

Stage 4 - Ceiling

You no doubt went to school, because you know that warm air always accumulates in the upper part of the room. Why am I saying this? And to the fact that in addition to the floor and walls, you need to take care of the thermal insulation of the ceiling in the chicken coop. This is especially important if there are many cracks and cracks in the ceiling through which warm air evaporates at space speed.

The technology that I followed when insulating the ceiling in my grandmother's chicken coop is outlined below:

1. First, he inspected the boards with which the ceiling was hemmed. There were found several parts that had already become unusable (rotted). I ruthlessly got rid of them, replacing them with new ones.

1. After that, I treated the wood on the ceiling (including the supporting beams) with an antiseptic composition and flame retardant. That is, it protected the premises for poultry from biocorrosion, the development of pathogens and fire.
2. Then he climbed into the attic (fortunately, the chicken coop was built on a grand scale and I had somewhere to turn around) and covered everything with a vapor barrier film. As a result, the insulation (I used mineral wool) will be protected from moisture generated as a result of the vital activity of chickens.

1. I put a heater on top. It was not necessary to make a crate here; instead, load-bearing beams were used, between which I placed basalt mats.
2. Then he covered the whole thing with another film, after which he sewed up the attic with sheets of plywood. It turned out to be warm for the chickens, and even a good junk storage, which the elderly woman quickly filled with necessary and unnecessary things.

Stage 5 (Bonus and Unexpected) - Heating the Chicken Coop

When I was already thinking that I could go to the shower, my grandmother came up with a brilliant idea - to equip heating in the chicken house. And who do you think was chosen as the honorary performer? Of course, your obedient servant.

I decided that one more plus would not spoil my karma, so I agreed.

I’ll tell you that there are several ways to maintain a comfortable temperature in a chicken room:

• use of boilers and furnaces running on liquid or solid fuels;
• the use of electric heaters;
• installation of powerful incandescent lamps.

The first option is the most economical and safest. But no one will install a separate boiler for the chicken coop (I’m also still in my mind), and if you make a tap from the heating system at home, you need to carefully insulate the pipes or bury them in the ground, otherwise the heat loss will be huge.

You can use a separate stove for the chicken coop, but do you want to visit the barn from time to time during the day to throw firewood? I think the answer is obvious.

It is better to install infrared heaters that operate automatically under the control of a thermostat. As soon as the house reaches the temperature you set, the device turns off, saving you money.

I suggested this option, but my grandmother said that no eggs are worth such a capital investment, after which she advised me to use my brains and come up with something more economical and more original.

After breaking my head a little, I suggested installing ordinary incandescent lamps in the chicken coop, which are a source of not only light, but also heat. I will not give a specific calculation of their number, it all depends on the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe room and the power of the lamps.

So that the birds do not damage the lamps and do not fry themselves, they must be protected with mesh caps, made by yourself or bought in a store.

Only after the birds saw the light in their chicken coop and felt the blessed warmth, I was released home. True, before that he was fed with delicious scrambled eggs. So it was not in vain that he made a house for chickens.

Conclusion

Warming the chicken coop, no matter how ridiculous this process may seem, makes it possible not only to save the number of poultry, but also to increase the number of eggs received from it. For example, the hens of my friend's grandmother (she refused to disclose her name) were very grateful to her: they supplied both her and her children, and me (a little) with eggs throughout the winter.

You can learn more about the construction and decoration of pet support rooms from the video in this article.

And if you have a desire, I would be very grateful for stories about how you or your friends built birdhouses. How did you insulate the chicken coop? You can leave your stories in the comments to the material.

With the advent of cold weather, the question of thermal insulation of the utility room arises. Insulating a chicken coop for the winter is a big deal. It's easy to do it yourself. It is enough to have the necessary tools and materials.