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All chickens need a roost where they can sleep in safety and shelter from the cold, wind and rain, rain especially if you live in Ireland! So here’s our article to help you on your way to building one.

When building a roost, you have to take a few things into account:

Location – The roost should be in a sheltered area to prevent draft but should get a good amount of sunlight. Space depends on your choice of breed and quantity. Generally large breeds or large quantities need more space while small bantam breeds or smaller quantities require less space.

Choice Of Material – Wood is the most common material used to construct henhouses/hencoops and is a good choice. As a base, a smooth concrete floor is best. When building your coop, remember that you will have to enter it regularly to clean it out and to provide water and feed so you should preferably be able to stand up straight in it and to get into it easily. If you are building a big henhouse, see to it that the door is wide enough for you to enter in an upright position  and to enter with a wheelbarrow which is very handy when cleaning the coop. In any case see to it that the henhouse is insulated well, so that frost and heat are kept out as much as possible. You can achieve this by applying insulation material to the inside of the place and covering this with chipboard or polythene sheeting.

Ventilation – Although the henhouse should be insulated well, ventilation is almost as important, if not more so. The easiest way of ventilating is having a window you can leave open night and day, only closing it when it freezes hard. Behind the open window you can place an insect screen of fine, yet strong wire gauze, preventing vermin from getting into the henhouse that way. If you are putting in several windows, keep in mind that it could become drafty, which may prove fatal to the chickens. In that case, place the windows in the top of the coop’s roof so that the chickens are not in the draft. In a small henhouse with three or four birds, a few ventilation slides will do.

The Finishing – Try to avoid joints in the coop as much as possible, to avoid lurking parasites. Therefore, you should finish the inside of the coop with some kind of smooth (polythene) sheeting.

Litter – Saw dust, clean ’sharp sand’, or a mixture of these is best as litter. Hay is less suitable, because it easily gets twisted around the chickens’ legs, thus endangering them. Also it tends to build up when contaminated with droppings. Straw on the other hand is fine. When having straw, see to it that it remains airy and dry. If you scatter a little grain (feed) in the straw every day your hens will turn it over leaving it airy and dry.

Heating And Light – In building a coop, it is sensible to make sure you have acess to electricity in order to provide artificial light for your chickens during the winter months and also for yourself when feeding and watering at night time. By leaving a light with them during the winter months you may lengthen the day for your birds so that they continue to lay in winter. In the colder months it is certainly not necessary to heat the roost; as a rule, this will only harm the animals. Chickens are adapted very well to the cold, even to sharp frosty weather, provided that they can roost out of the wind in dry conditions. At night, chickens protect themselves by sticking their heads in between their warm plumage. Then they sag at the ‘knees’ a bit (or rather, at the hocks), so that also their legs and toes are enveloped in warm feathers. By ruffling up their feathers, a well-insulating air cushion is formed between plumage and skin. Chickens love huddling together on their perches, so that they only lose very little body heat. By heating the roost, your chickens would have to go out in the mornings from a very cozy and warm roost into a freezing run, and would almost certainly catch cold and fall ill. Also, there would be a risk of frozen wattles and combs. ( Reference to The Complete Encyclopedia Of Chickens by Esther Verhoef & Aad Rijs)