sent in by Amy, USA

Before you begin to build your poultry house there are many factors to take into consideration. First is the number of birds you want to house, then there is the purpose for the poultry. Breeds of poultry, and size as well as area and accessibility.

Chickens will fight - this is normal behavior and is most important for establishment of the pecking order of the species. Like other animals the strongest shall survive. This behavior must be prepared for. Chickens are on the food chain, dogs, possums, hawks and other predators will try to get your fowl. You can not have an effective breeding program with more than one rooster in the breeding pen. You do not need a rooster to obtain eggs, and a hen makes a faster grower for a meat bird. If your area is prone to snow, rain, wind etc you must improvise for the weather. A main key factor is accessibility.

With all this in mind lets look at some housing. If you have the area, money, and time you can go to the extreme for your housing. A favorite of mine is this house designed for egg and breeding egg fowl.

This house will however run you some money. Inside the house are 16 nest boxes, five fold up perches and three individual runs. On the outside in back (which you can't see in the photo) is a gazebo type house the breeders are kept in. The gazebo has 3 compartments - one for the breeders, one for the young, and one for brooding. All the runs are completely wired for the fowls security. A drain in the runs to rid the water run off was also installed.

In California (my area) we do not have the snow to contend with. For my poultry a more effective and less costly type of housing was necessary. I decided on what is called a shed row for my poultry. In fact 4 shed rows tied together in a "O" type shape. Shed row buildings are easy to build, easier to move when not tied together and provide many options for breeding and young bird housing. A type of shed unit is shown below.

This type of unit I have found to be best for the breeders or young show birds, but for juveniles it doesn't work well. For the juvenile I prefer the type below:

These stall pens handle the weather better than their open counterparts further back in the yard. For exhibition poultry a stall type building is necessary for breeding and conditioning in my findings. Stall type caging can vary and be made from most any pre-building or empty lot. This barn below is being converted into a poultry house.

The finished product will be 6 breeding pens, one brooding pen, and the whole house will be wired 25 foot out - full length across and 2 foot deep under the soil. A large project that is nearly finished now. The owner has only one breed of fowl and originally wanted only one pen for the birds. After consultation stall pens were decided on.

Housing similar to this is great for your egg or meat fowl. The problems I tried to change are:
1. the concrete floor. This particular barn has a concrete floor - when the fowl are jumping off the perch in the morning they can cause injury to the feet and/or legs. Concrete also holds the cold and heat. (easier to clean though)
2. the wooden slat sides. Though we did cut the back 1/2 way up and replace the area with wire, I would of liked to have the wire on the sides as well 1/2 way for ventilation during the summer.
3. nesting area. Though a nesting area is not a necessity (the hen will lay where ever she feels comfortable) I like to have an area available for them.

If you are not contending with the worse of the elements from mother nature you can go with individual pens with a covering. This type of penning is great for conditioning and show preparation.

The long-tail breeds like this phoenix pictured above require a different type of condition pen for exhibition purposes. This little moveable unit below was built and designed with them in mind.

If you are going to have housing like this outdoor unit above I would recommend an exercise area for the fowl. My pens are not kept up well at this time as work has kept me busy - however this may give you an idea of unit for exercise.

Each little house holds a different bird - alternating days and running time is best. This pen of white cochins has been separated to condition for sale.

So in review you can see your housing will need to be factored on weather also. If you are in an area where it snows you could not keep fowl in open housing nor the open stalls pens. Yet you could use a variation of the juveniles pens and or exercise pens.

As I stated I like the shed rows - here is my housing unit. Hope this helps to make up your mind and or give you some ideas for housing your birds.

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