Sprangles

One of the things that Lana and I have been really keen to do for a long time is put some chickens in our backyard. Both of us have good childhood memories of keeping chickens, and we’d like to provide that for our children too. There’s also the benefit of being able to convert kitchen food scraps into free eggs and manure for the garden.

The area we’ve selected is around the back of the shed, between the shed and the property fence. There’s a long thin strip behind the shed, and at either end a little square of yard that we can use; a total area of about 12m². Research tells me that each chook needs about a square meter of yard on average, so we should have plenty of space for the 4 chooks we’re planning on getting.

One end of the yard has the apricot tree in it, and the other has our struggling plum tree. I’m hoping that the chickens will be able to use the fruit trees for shade and at the same time they’ll fertilise the trees and keep the bugs down.

I selected the square between the shed and the apricot tree as the location of the hutch:

That’s a convenient location to access the nesting boxes (for collecting the eggs) and it’s right next to the vegetable garden.

My parents were big fans of permaculture when I was growing up, and I remember reading about chicken tractors and wanting to have one of those. That’s not really practical in our backyard, but what I would like to do instead is be able to temporarily increase the size of the pen to include the vegetable garden from time to time. That way the chickens get to enjoy the fresh ground of the vegetable garden on occasion, and they’ll help fertilise it and turn the soil over. I’ve still got to work out how I’m going to do that exactly, so any ideas are welcome!

First things first, building the hutch. After being inspired by some of Lana’s work colleagues, I decided to try and build the chicken hutch as cheaply as possible using things I already had in the shed and salvaged material from bulk rubbish collections and other places. The first step was to install the four posts which form the legs of the hutch (since it’s raised off the ground).

In the spirit of salvage, two of those legs are old treated-pine sleepers from the front-yard renovation, and the other two are left-over treated pine members that I had sitting in the wood rack. I had to buy some quick-set cement to set the legs in place: $17.

Next I started framing the hutch using 70×35mm structural pine from two places: some I had sitting in the shed left over from the pantry and feature-wall, and some I salvaged from the off-cuts pile at the house that’s being built next door to Dan’s place. Not only am I not spending any money, but I’m freeing up space in the shed!

The blue tubs in that shot I picked up at Bunnings for $5 each (total cost now $27) to use as the nesting boxes. I decided to use plastic tubs so that they’re removable which will make cleaning them easier. Where those two boxes are will be the nesting boxes, and the rest of the hutch will be roosting space with a wire-mesh floor. The feed tray and water for the hens will be on the ground under the nesting boxes so that they’re easy to access (we can collect eggs and feed the chooks at the same time) and sheltered under the hutch.

After completing most of the framing and the roof timbers, here’s what it looked like:

Ready for cladding! I used a bunch of old extra roof tiles from our house for the roof, and the walls are made out of a bunch of discarding flooring I found at a bulk rubbish collection. Unfortunately I had to buy all the hinges and bolts, they added another $60 to the total cost. The floor inside the hutch is made out of mesh — I had to buy that too, for $30. Total cost now is $117.

Here’s Lana admiring the new shelving after I’d finished roofing and cladding.

Above her hand is shelving that accessible to the outside. Below her hand is the two nesting boxes that the hens approach from the inside to lay eggs.

Here’s a shot with all the doors closed:

The top two doors are for the shelving, and the bottom two doors are for access to the nesting boxes.

Here’s a shot with all the doors open (and Lana’s big baby bump). If you look carefully you can see past the nesting boxes to the mesh floor of the hutch inside.

View the complete set of photos relating to the chicken hutch.