| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| ross |
Hen house from plastic storage boxHi.I wondered what folks' opinions are on making a hen house from one of these: http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&fh_secondid=10226442&fh_view_size=10&fh_location=%2f%2fcatalog01%2fen_GB&fh_search=plastic+storage+box&fh_eds=%C3%9F&fh_refview=search&ts=1253386737475&isSearch=true I have decided to go plastic given the ease of cleaning, plus I need something that is light enough to be moved around by my wife but large enough to house 4 hens. The eglu is the only plastic house I've seen on the market, but out of my price range, even second hand, and besides, it's too small for 4 hens, even 3 in my opinion. These plastic storage boxes are waterproof, ventilated and sturdy (enough to sit on). The lockable lid should make it easy to retrieve eggs, and the inside has a shallow shelf on each side, which I could use to put perches across. I would make a hole on the far side and make a door in the usual hen house style. They sell for £50 so much cheaper than eglu, even after making a run. Can anyone see any major potential problems? many thanks |
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| bodger |
Ive thought of this myself but you'd certainly have to get the ventilation right. There could be a problem with condensation. | ||
| ross |
good point bodger- it does say ventilated but that's to stop cushions going mouldy presumably! Is the ventilation important because of the ammonia in their droppings? | ||
| Bebo |
Condensation will make it damp if it isn't ventilated and it'll get too hot in the sun without ventilation. | ||
| Castle Farm |
Lack of insulation in summer and even more so in winter may prove to be a problem for the birds.
The rubbish that some companies make their coops and runs from beggars belief. To give poultry the protection from winter weather the timber should be a minimum of 5/8ths thick. |
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| stumbling goat |
i was at the newbury show today and had a close up look at eglus and other chicken houses they sell. how do these keep hens warm in the winter? they are thin plastic, no insulation.
also saw the new brand that was being talked about here a few days ago, sorry cannot remember name, and they are almost half the price of eglus and look as good altho' somewhat industrual. eglu looks like it will appeal to more money than sense brigade. sg |
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| ross |
Eglu has a double skin so that may be why it can cope with temperature extremes. Would be interested to know what this eglu rival is. | ||
| Rob R |
They strike me as the kind of thing one would buy to use for a short time & then just sitting on the lawn, going green, along with the white plastic patio furniture and those horrible plastic orange & yellow kids toy cars. Given that chickens are designed for perching in trees I think plastic is about the most alien environment you can have for them. Floorless would be my preference- no need for 'bedding' and doesn't create a environment for bacteria to proliferate and as long as they are dry and not drafty they don't need keeping warm. |
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| stumbling goat |
a double empty skin is what use?
any top, or cover will keep the frost off. sg |
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| bodger |
There are large forums out there in cyber space, where if you have any desire to fit in, then the Eglu is the only way to go.  I'll mention no names of course, the walls have ears   but the particular forum that I'm thinking of has vicious roving gangs of housewives patrolling its poultry pages and woe betide anyone has the audacity to even hint that that they are massively over priced and nothing like ideal accomodation for their beloved 'chucks'
Even if I could afford one, then one certainly wouldn't be on my shopping list. Apparently they do come in pretty colours though. IMO, the company has very successfuly marketed its wares but the emphasis of this marketing has been aimed at hitting the inexperienced ( for that, read beginner) poultry keeper extremely hard in the pocket. I bought a 6x4 ship lap shed from Focus for £99.00 and converted it into something fit for purpose. I used off cuts and scrap wood and built a run for it as well, but then I'm common and the Jones's next door are way out of sight ! ( In as much as we don't try to keep up with them  )
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| Rosemary Judy |
Can I confess to having one of those boxes.... to store my garden pots and netting and other essentials in.
It does a very good job too.....
Not sure I would want chickens in it - the bottom is actually quite flimsy and easliy moved out of place, so not really that secure |
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| ross |
I didn't mean for this to turn into an eglu debate! I know there can be evangelical-like feelings on both sides. I agree they are overpriced and omlet must be making a very nice markup, but then they are clearly selling well and if they weren't then the price would come down. I also think that if there were any serious problems keeping hens in plastic housing they would have emerged by now, and there are many happy eglu owners for years now- ebay has not been exactly flooded with second hand ones, as shown by the second-hand price being very close to the price of a new one. I'm also not convinced by the 'alien environment' comment. If we apply this argument then people shouldn't be living in houses made of bricks, plastics and glass. I think hens living in a pressure-treated timber house held together with metal nails and running around in a galvanised wire run is effectively as much as an alien environment as plastic. Anyway, I'm not trying to convince anyone plastic is better than wood, it's just that I think plastic is the right choice for me.
Rosemary Judy- that's useful to know your comment above the base. Are you thinking about security in terms of a fox digging in, as I could surround the house with a skirt of netting perhaps. I'd be interested to know how secure the lid is when padlocked- do you think a fox would be able o prise up the lid from either side? |
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| bodger |
People have a choice ,to an extent as to the environment they choose to live in, chickens don't.
In answer to your original question, my answer would be NO. |
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| Tavascarow |
Any container the right size that is dry, well ventilated & vermin proof is suitable.
Insulation isn't important. Chicken are warm blooded creatures covered with the best insulation known to man & as long as they are healthy & well fed will withstand any amount of cold a UK winter can throw at them if the above criteria are supplied although I do remember an old poultry man telling me how he found his chickens frozen to their perches in the 1947 winter but the birds where still alive. My preference is plywood arks with 1" weldmesh bottoms but plastic, tin, brick or just about any other building material could be suitable. |
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| ross |
I would consider wood if I could find one the right size and weight. I want to keep 3-4 hens, the house needs to be able to be lifted by one person and be able to fit into a large car. Likewise the run needs to be able to be easily disassembled and fit into the car. This is so that I can move it to friends when we go on holiday. I've not seen any wooden house/run that fits this criteria. And not too good at woodwork so not keen to try making it myself! | ||
| Tavascarow |
You could make the run from panels that bolt together as they do for aviaries just scaled down.
Just sheets of 1" wire or mesh surounded by a 1x1 frame & holes drilled for the bolts. You could probably do the same for the house to make it more transportable. |
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| bodger |
Its in the summer that they are likey to suffer but even in the winter they are far from ideal. As TS has so rightly pointed out, they are warm blooded creatures with good insulation, at night time IMO that warmth will cause condensation problems | ||
| Jamanda |
All creatures breathe out out water as a by product of respiration. That's were the water comes from.
I thought Bodger did us an article on hen houses but I can't find it. Was it a thread? |
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| bodger |
It may have been a thread, it was sometime ago now. | ||
| Mary-Jane |
I have to say that I've always disliked the idea of the Omlet range. Wood is so much better for chooks - they can breathe properly inside wood. I can't think that hens should be hermetically sealed into anything.
Nor should humans for that matter. We all need a bit of fresh air around the houses. |
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| bodger |
This is part of part of more general article on first buying chickens.
Housing Long before you buy the chickens, you need to have looked at what housing there is available on the market. This can be a bit of a nightmare for the beginner, with highly priced housing with fancy sounding names, that are on occasion designed with catching the poultry keeper rather than the hens welfare in mind. My advice would always be to get housing that makes tending the birds a pleasure for you and not an arduous task. Make sure that they are going to be easy for you to clean out. Doorways should be broad and situated in such a way that you don't have to crawl in on hands and knees to extract eggs and chicken poo. If through poor design looking after your chickens becomes a real chore, then you are far less likely to look after them properly. The security of your chickens from both four footed and two footed predators should always be born in mind and whilst big isn't always beautiful, I'd always go for as big a coop and run as possible. The more space that your birds have, the happier they will be. |
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| Jamanda |
Found it. Link | ||
| Rob R |
Ours do Seriously though, that would be an interesting experiment- two houses, side by side, one made of wood and another made of plastic and see which the hens do prefer...
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| Louisdog |
I have had eglus in the past (three at one point) but have switched back to wooden housing. (I still think they are ok albeit £££ if you only want to keep two or three chooks though; but not for me.)
One thing I found with the plastic is that it wasn't necessarily easier to clean than wood. When cleaning would a good scrape and then a scrub gets it pretty clean but the poo seems to weld really firmly onto the plastic! So it took a lot of elbow grease to clean, it was also a nuisance that the plastic was so easily scratched. You mentioned that the house needs to go in the car easily, do you have an estate car? You could fit something quite large in there. Will the B&Q plastic house fit or will it have to be disassembled? Personally I would be tempted by something like this:- http://www.forshamcottagearks.com/poultry-housing/bedgebury-802-poultry-coop.htm That would fit in your car whole so the hens could even be transported inside it, you would then be able to attach a simple triangular run to it. Of course the best thing would be to make one, much cheaper and not too hard using a sheet of decent plywood. Hope that helps! Cheers Alex |
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| ross |
Hi Alex-some useful comments there, thanks. Ease of cleaning was one factor leaning me towards plastic, so useful to know it's perhaps not as easy as is claimed. I've looked at that range from Forsham before but they are quite heavy but would fit in the car. Is plywood fox proof- can it be chewed through? | ||
| alice |
It won't help with the 'fitting into a car' bit, but for 'mobility', we make our henhouses with legs, tall enough to run the wheelbarrow underneath, and move them around like that 
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| Rob R |
Re: cleaning, and as a slight aside, it seems similar to the situation with chopping boards, plastics easier when it's brand new but from then on you need a pressure washer to get into all the cuts and scratches. Even then plastic seems to stain terribly, just think of what plastic drinkers end up looking like. | ||
| ross |
This seems similiar to Forsham in design but go for about half the price. Perhaps a lower build quality?
link |
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| bodger |
Try and make your own Ross, its all part of the fun of keeping chickens. I have a Golden Cockerel book on building your own chicken houses. It has several designs and I've lent it out to numerous people on various forum. Its here at home resting at the moment. Let me know if you fancy borrowing it.
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| ross |
very kind offer bodger, but I actually have that book too! Trouble is, I really am quite rubbish at woodwork! Are the savings that great doing it yourself though? I've made a few simple things before like a beehive shaped composter and found that once I've bought the wood, nails and bits and pieces, it's not all that much cheaper than buying something. Any idea roughly how much it would cost to build something the same as that ebay auction? | ||
| ninat |
You could try asking your local sawmill. They would probably knock something up for a lower price than a commercial hen house.
What about having it on wheels- could easily be moved around then. |
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| bodger |
It would be a fraction Ross. | ||
| Tavascarow |
Foxes or dogs wont bother it but a badger could, but I've heard on another forum of badgers dismantling a rather expensive timber built house to get at the chooks so I still think ply is good. Main reason I like it, as well as ease of manufacture & price is there are fewer nooks & cranies for pests to hide in unlike shiplap & tongue & groove.
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| bring me sunshine |
For the past year I have had both an Eglu and an Eglu Cube, as well as a small wooden ark. The chickens seem happy and are certainly laying well, and the Eglu has successfully doubled up as a broody ark, including last winter when we had temperatures three or four degrees below zero night after night.
Personally, I find the Omlet range much easier to clean out than the wooden one and find that the sticky poo problem is much harder to clean from the wooden ark than the plastic poo trays, though I agree about the tendency for it to scratch. Yes, they're ridiculously overpriced, but I don't regret buying them. |
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| Rob R |
Ixy will be along later to say how much (or how little) hers cost. But I didn't use much skill in putting it together. The most was probably jigsawing the end board plywood to make a half round shape- the woodyard had cut all the pieces of wood to length and the rest was just screwing it together. If you think the build quality is not that good when you've finished, at least you've done it for less (most of the cost is in time putting it together) and many of the things you can buy don't guarantee you much build quality. |
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| Chez |
I've got one of those - the four foot by four foot version. It's very much lower build quality than a forsham - the screws aren't great and the wood is very thin. However, it was easy to put together, easy to clean out and is light to move around despite it's size. It was bought in the spring as a quick solution to a housing issue when I didn't have time to do anything else or more money to buy something better and I anticipate it will do the job for a couple of years; one or two more if I roof over the entire pen as I plan to next week and remember to creosote it. Have you looked on 'preloved' as well as eBay? |
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| Ixy |
omg building your own is waaaay cheaper! My own design cost less tahn £60 and can house ten largefowl. I've done some pricing and I can house 32 for £70. On top of that, I never have to buy bedding or clean out.
Poultry housing is a con, and plastic or metal housing would make me think ventilation and damp problems. This is VERY bad for poultry, and also very easy to miss until it's too late. I would think that many eglu owners have probably lost birds due to resp. problems and just put it/had it put down to 'oh that's chickens for you'...but it isn't, it's because we insist on sealing them into boxes when they're designed to be perching in treetops. Calves suffer from the same misconceptions about needing to be sealed up nice and cosy....in a little box ideal for breeding nasties
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| Chez |
Do you have pictures, Ixy? Pretty please? | ||
| Ixy |
er yeah possibly, over the next few days if I get near a broadband connection...
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| bring me sunshine |
I was going to ask the same thing! | ||
| mal55 |
Nice one bodger!! I've got the same shed plus some home made "semi's" (you can fit more in the same building site!!) |
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| Ixy |
Ok here weo go. This basically the prototype - it works fine, even for heavy largefowl (the ixworths get up and down easily) and of course you can scale it down for banties, or put mesh round it so it can act as an ark for fewer birds. At the moment I've got nothing round it as I'm using the birds to follow pigs in the vegpatch which is fenced but I designed it with electric fencing in mind...which I love thesedays. I can easily pull it along on the skids myself, but not when it's full of ten heavy ixworths!
But I'd like to build another which will get rid of the corruline, making it cheaper and more eco-friendly, and will have a lifting lid so you don't have to bend down to see who's in... As you can see the nextbox is just a bucket, which they do use (although a few go off into the nettles when they get the chance ) and that's the only bit which needs cleaning or bedding in it. In the next one I will probably figure out some kind of external nestbox that will be a bit neater.
these two have been in there all morning: 
the day's productivity so far 
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| mal55 |
Very energy efficient getting them to lay in the bucket so you don't need to collect eggs!!
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| ross |
Decided to have a rough cost-up of the 8 Hen House in the Gold Cockerel Michael Roberts book, which is 4 ft wide, 3 ft deep and about 3.5 ft tall at the front, with a sloping roof.
The plans call for 12mm plywood, which B&Q sells for £25 in 8 ft x 4 ft pieces. I would need to buy 3 of these pieces, and after having bought the other pieces of timber, screws etc, it's looking to be approx £100 and that's before making a run. Are there any savings to be made on this? I know B&Q aren't always the cheapest, but they do cut the pieces to size, which I wouldn't be able to do if I got some delivered from somewhere cheaper. Is 12mm thickness necessary? |
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| Ixy |
good grief - get down to a timberyard - all the wood for that house I have was £28 or something... | ||
| Tavascarow |
I haven't bought any ply for a couple of years but £25.00 sounds dear to me.
I'm sure I only paid £12 to £15.00 a sheet & three sheets make 2 arks With weldmesh floors & using roofing battons (2x1 tanalised) as the joining timber. I'm sure when we made my arks they cost about £35.00 each to build. My next door neighbour is a chippy so he cut mine to size & all I had to do was screw it together. Trade builders merchants tend to be cheaper than DIY chains. Do you have a Wickes in your area? IMO 9mm ply is adequate for poultry houses.
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| bodger |
I use shuttering ply from my local builders merchant and its quite a bit cheaper. I then give it a real good dosing with creosote. | ||
| BadgerFace |
£25 for ply is very expensive. 18mm (8' x 4') exterior ply that I've used to build my pig arks was only £13 a sheet. (from local Timber merchant). It's very easy to cut, even with a handsaw. Give it a go, it's satisfying designing and building your own
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| ross |
Where I live must be expensive then! Have tried a few other places in Reading:
Peppards Builders Merchants - £23 a sheet Timberworld - £38 a sheet! Jewsons - £23 a sheet Jewsons said that they do shuttering ply for £15 but didn't think it would last more than a couple of years |
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| Rosemary Judy |
Hi, gosh, what have you started Ross ??? 
Yes, I would be worried about the fox pushing the base in, and getting through it easily. I bought an expensive house, cos I am rubbish at woodwork and Mr RJ wanted nothing to do with my hens ( changed his mind since, though ) and I can't find the link..... I got the money over several years for birthday and christmas pressies, and just saved it til Mr RJ changed his mind. Mine is raised up, with good big moveable sides to make cleaning easy, and it is great. http://www.manorfarmwoodcraft.co.uk/starterkits.php Edited to add the link |
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| Ixy |
that's ridiculous, my sheets were £16. Remember they will want you to buy the more expensive stuff, so of course they will tell you the cheaper stuff won't last, but if you paint it with preservative, it will and even so, even if it does only last 5 yrs, you've not spent that much on it anyway. | ||
| Cathryn |
I have a second hand (£70) Forsham Cottage Ark. It is good and strong and must be at least 10 years old, probably much more. Time was the most expensive bit of this for me so I looked around and was lucky and found this one.
I like the design Ixy. How do you protect yours at night? Electric fencing? |
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| ross |
Agree, very ingenious design Ixy. Would emulate if I lived in a rural setting and had space to move it around (and protect from mr fox) | ||
| Rob R |
One thing I would add about converting the plastic box- working in plastic is much harder than working in wood, and it would be quite easy to make a mistake, whereas wood is more forgiving as far as repairs go. | ||
| Rob R |
It's easily adaptable:
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