Technical question about home made chicken house

[Smithagain]

We are making plans to start keeping chickens.

DH is contemplating making the chicken house and run. He's been studying commercial ones on the web, to get ideas - and has noted that almost all are made from shiplap boarding (interlocking horizontal boards).

He's wondering if there is any technical reason why it can't be made in exterior grade plywood - which would be both cheaper and easier. And wouldn't have any crevices in it for mites & other nasties.

Anyone qualified to comment?

[bramblebooks]

I can't comment from experience as mine is an eglu . I do know that my friend's plywood chicken house is infested with mites though. Good luck with the chickens. It's addictive.

[Smithagain]

Thanks Bramble ... good to know that plywood ones do exist, at least!

[bramblebooks]

I bought my eglu second hand through omlet on their forum. You can also get bargains on ebay. Some people use the eglu within a walk in run, so worth thinking about.

Go onto the omlet forum as people are always doing creative things - maybe another poultry forum would be informative too with fewer eglu obsessives!

[Smithagain]

Will do.

(Smith wonders if she's brave enough to amble over to an actual, real life poultry forum away from the Mumsnet comfort zone. Decides to delegate to DH, who is up to his armpits in chicken-related paraphernalia and beginning to sound vaguely knowledgeable!)

[bramblebooks]

get yerself to omlet and lurk. You'll learn lots about chickens. Go on. you know you want to!

[meltedmarsbars]

We have a home-made house - as did every farm and smallholding where I grew up. Ours is a converted playhouse!

It is made of lapped fencing boards, with a wire run, and the whole thing is moveable, so they get fresh ground once a fortnight or so.

I clean ours out with disinfectant to keep pests at bay.

[Leeka]

Make it of what you like, they'll be fine!

[Smithagain]

Thanks all! Think we're going with plywood. DH is busy sketching plans. Looks like we're in business.

[DailyLazyFascistMail]

My 3 ex-bats live in an exterior grade plywood house -never had mites or any nasties. It astonishes me how much people spend on trendy chicken housing! Ours was purpose-built but 2nd hand and free

[DailyLazyFascistMail]

(we have some fetching blue tarpaulin flapping about to 'water proof' it)

[nickelbabe]

they're normally made from ship-lap because it looks prettier.
but! it's more prone to warping and creating gaps.
plyboard is a better solution and it's soooo much easier to join together!

mites aren'e a problem if you clean the thing out regularly.

[Smithagain]

Oh good - nice to know that it works. Am pretty confident DH can make it look sufficiently good in ply - he is a structual engineer and v good at making things in a functional, but aesthetically pleasing manner.

[Lilliput]

There is a photo of our home made chicken coop and fixed run on my photos. It's just been built onto the fence. We will need to weather proof it a bit more before it gets really cold as it will be very draughty with the open slats of the fence.