Chicken Coops for Sale in Hecker, Illinois
Chicken Coops for Sale in Hecker, Illinois
Metal Siding on Chicken Coops
My chicken coops have always had metal roofs, and now I’m trying out metal siding, on the grounds that I want anything I build to last 20 years without maintenance, and the exterior plywood I’ve been using doesn’t deliver that.
[Update: Seven years after writing this blog post, the corrugated metal walls are holding up well. Seven years is long enough for plywood walls to start falling to pieces, but the metal walls are holding up well, with only a bit of rust here and there.]
One of my old pasture houses, with a 15-year-old metal roof and 7-year-old metal siding.
Does Metal Promote Condensation and Wetness?
People will tell you that metal siding sweats, because of condensation. This is true if the inside of the house is warmer than the outside, since moisture from the warm house will condense on the cold walls and ceiling. But it’s not about metal vs. wood, since condensation forms on any kind of roof or wall, no matter what it’s made of. In marginal cases, it’s more visible on metal because it’s 100% non-absorbent.
A Fresh-Air House is a Dry House
But you can dodge the problem with a fresh-air poultry house. If you add enough ventilation, the inside of the house is just as cold as the outside, and you get no condensation. My metal roofs don’t have condensation unless there’s snow on the roof and temperatures are above freezing. The rest of the time, my highly ventilated houses have dry ceilings and walls.
Fresh-Air Poultry Houses, by Prince T. Woods. Reprinted by me!
This is one of the main points of , the chicken-coop book I’ve republished (check out the if you haven’t already). It focuses on the advantage of well-ventilated houses, a concept that still needs to be repeated constantly today. You won’t read anything about metal walls or roofs in this book, since it predates their use, but it’s a treasure trove in other ways.
You can also prevent condensation with insulation, but I don’t do that.
Can you really prevent damp chicken houses through ventilation alone? Well, it works for me, and I live in Oregon, which has a famously wet climate!
Installing Corrugated Sheet Metal Walls
Back to the construction project. In keeping with my other rule of construction (never use a saw when you can buy stuff that’s already the right size), I ignored my existing stock of 10-foot metal roofing and obtained some cheap 8-foot corrugated roofing from Home Depot. My chicken houses are 8×8 feet.
Karen and I banged these sheets onto a couple of sides of a chicken house where the old OSB siding was falling to pieces. We used roofing screws. These are hex drive screws with neoprene washers. We used to use roofing nails, but they pull loose too easily and we hate having roofing panels flapping loose in the breeze! And using power tools instead of a hammer keeps my shoulders and back from seizing up. I bang the screw in a short way with a hammer, then drive it home with a cordless drill.
I’m told that roofing screws have three times the holding power of nails.
These panels went on very quickly, and if they ever rust through (which they will, at the bottom edges anyway, if I allow chicken manure to pile up against them), I can take the screws out and replace them just as easily.
So far, so good. The shiny metal really brightens up the interior of the chicken house, and because it’s non-porous, it provides no place for roost mites to accumulate.
Cheap Roofing is Good Enough
Plain old “ripple metal” (corrugated steel) is less rigid than V-channel roofing, but it’s proven to be stiff enough, even for a house that gets dragged around behind a tractor, which can put all sorts of stresses on it, especially if it gets hung up on holes and bumps along the way. So far, so good. That means that, so far, the cheapest possible corrugated metal has been perfectly adequate.
Watch out for translucent corrugated fiberglass. In my experience, it’s not very strong and becomes increasingly brittle over time. I’m sure it has its uses, but don’t think of it as being structural in the way that plywood and corrugated steel are.
You Don’t Have to Settle for Ugly
Of course, you can build a much prettier house with metal roofing with baked-enamel finishes in designer colors, and you should probably do this if you don’t want a silver house, since it’s hard to get paint to stick to galvanized steel. While I’m always looking for the cheapest, longest-lasting, easiest-to-build designs, there are plenty of other ways of approaching the problem of chicken-coop design.
Related
Chicken Coop Kit For 6 Chickens in Hecker, Illinois
A good place to start any search is the internet. Simply plugging in the phrase "chicken coops for sale in Hecker Illinois" into any one of the numerous search engines and a wealth of information will pop up. This information will provide links to other websites that will be informative and will provide the right direction for finding Hecker Illinois chicken coops. What to look for when buying a chicken coop in Hecker, Illinois With the big increase in poultry maintaining there has actually been a similarly large surge in the array of poultry materiel for sale. Fowl housing is a situation in point. It's additionally a classic example of the good old bandwagon being got on as various potential poultry real estate professionals pitch a range of accommodation asserting to be the optimal solution to your chicken housing requirements. Commonly the rate looks attractive, your diy-chicken-coop-planshome looks desirable, hell even the clean-cut family standing there feeding the chickens look appealing. Surely they know a high quality chicken house when they see one? There are several cheap and horrible cages swamping the marketplace. I recognize this as I've examined a variety of them in the field, and seen a ewe run directly via one when the feed pail showed up. The result was only a pricey stack of fire wood and a tiny flock of bemused and also now homeless bantams.
Baby Chick Enclosure in Hecker, Illinois
Most of the time these standardized versions are created of fast grown wood - come the first decrease of rainfall they swell, leaving you either fortifying a door that will not shut, or tearing the doorway furniture off in a vain effort to launch the squawking residents. The very first warm day means the wood dries out as well as splits, the really felt roof bubbles and boils, as well as come nightfall the chickens choose not to go in. This is not as a result of their disappointment at the decrease of their once eye-catching commercial property yet considering that the hovel is now a place for, and also probably crawling with, the poultry keeper's nemesis, red mite. Add that it stated on the blurb that it would certainly match 4 huge chickens when that equipping density was based on the Circle Line at 5pm on a Friday, and exactly what are you entrusted? A couple of joints and also some kindling. A suitable coop for thee to four birds need to cost you in the region of ₤ 300 though this can rely on whether you elect for a free standing house or one with a run connected. Assuming you are varying your birds in a huge room as well as the pop opening doorway allows enough for the type you maintain, after that the major requirements of real estate boil down to three points which will certainly define the variety of birds the house will hold; perches, nest boxes as well as air flow. Many breeds of chicken will certainly perch when they go to roost in the evening, this perch must preferably be 5-8cm vast with smoothed off sides so the foot rests conveniently on it. The perch needs to be above the nest box entry as chickens will also naturally try to find the acme to perch. A perch less than that will have the birds roosting in the nest box overnight (which is incidentally when they generate one of the most poo) leading to soiled eggs the following day. They should not however be so high off the floor of the house that leg injuries could possibly happen when the bird gets down in the morning. Chickens need regarding 20cm of perch each (in little breeds this is obviously much less), plus if more than one perch is mounted in the house they must be more than 30cm apart. They will certainly hunker up with their next-door neighbors however are not that crazy about roosting with a beak in the bloomers of the bird in front. Preferably your home must have a least one nest box for each three birds and these ought to be off the ground as well as in the darkest location of your house. The house must have ample ventilation: without it after that condensation will build up every night, even in the chilliest of weather. Understand, ventilation works on the concept of warm air leaving through a high void attracting cooler air in from a reduced gap - it's not a collection of holes on opposite walls of your house and at the exact same degree, this is what's called a draught. If you have a house with a run affixed then the factors above are still real, but you ought to additionally think about the run dimension. The EU maximum legal stocking thickness for a complimentary range bird is (and also allow's face it, one of the motivations for keeping some hens in your home is possibly improved or far better well-being) 2,500 birds each hectare, that's optimal one bird each 4m settled. Take a close consider a few of the deal residences - it could well be your home has the appropriate perches, correct air flow as well as ample nest boxes for a reasonable number of birds, yet will each of the chickens have anything greater than an A4 sized piece of ground to invest the day on? And so as the claiming goes, "you obtain what you pay for". You may assume you've got hold of a deal, however you as well as your flock can rue the day you did. Acquisition the appropriate house and it will certainly last for a couple of decades, otherwise longer offered the proper treatment. In the end your poultry and your poultry maintaining experience will certainly be considerably the far better for it.chick plan
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