Laying hens can be an important component to your farms ecosystem. Read about the importance of birds within the farm in a earlier blog. At Parker Creek Ranch the hens provide two primary services: 1) they fertilize our pastures with their rich manure and 2) create a healthy profit and weekly cash flow. Laying hens are a great place to start for the inexperienced poultry farmer. They are more hardy and forgiving than their meat producing counterpart. After the brooding phase is completed at 8 weeks or so it’s time for them to be on the pasture. Good portable shelter design is critical. A well designed system will save you time, money and serious headaches down the road. We have experimented with several designs over the years and have learned some lessons along the way. Our shelters are adapted to our South Texas climate. Our climate is generally very hot during the summers often reaching 100 degrees plus and can be fairly cold during the winters, but does not reach temperatures that can hurt the chickens. Thus, our birds are on pasture 365 days per year. Here is my lengthy list for design considerations:

1) Portability is key. You basically have two options, tires or skids. Skids are good because you don’t have to worry about flat tires, but your portability is limited. For example, sometimes we move our hens in their shelters over 1/2 a mile to new pasture. Remember my goal is to utilize their manure as fertilizer to rebuild degraded soil. Sometimes we cross creeks or other terrain that is difficult to navigate with skids. Tires make the shelter much more portable and easier to move over longer distances. We purchase old hay trailers or header trailers and build our shelter structure on top of that.

2) Steel or wood? Since our base trailers is steel and I’m a decent welder I prefer steel. I don’t have to worry about bolts or screws pulling loose from wood. Steel is also easy to wash and disinfect when needed. Steel is perhaps personal preference, but I feel like our structures are built to last. Our shelters are framed with square steel tubing and we use salvaged metal roofing for the sides and tops.

3) Floor or no floor? I prefer to have a floor for several reasons. Most importantly if you want full predator protection during the night when the hens are roosting a good floor is essential. Our shelters are built like Alcatraz so that the hens can be fully enclosed at night and I can sleep peacefully knowing they are safe. We have used several types of flooring over the years and have settled on 1.5” expanded steel. The manure falls through unless we are going through a really wet spell where the manure is sticky. Some of our expanded steel floors are over eight years old and look the same as the day we installed them. Consider using materials that will last the lifetime of your shelter.

4) I prefer a zero pressure, reservoir watering system. We place a 300 gallon reservoir inside the shelters to gravity feed Plasson bell waterers located on the outside of the shelter. The reservoir needs to be colored plastic, either black or green to prevent algae build up in your tank. Occasionally we add apple cider vinegar to the tank to kill the algae and deworm the hens. From the reservoir we run 3/4’ pvc under the shelter. The Plasson bell waterers are fed from this PVC line. Plasson sells a saddle with a shutoff valve specifically designed for attaching to 3/4” PVC. From the saddle the waterer is fed by a 1/8” black poly line simply attached with barb fittings. I prefer bell type waterers instead of nipple drinkers because the hens can get a mouthful of water when they need it most. Remember it gets really hot here in South Texas and during the summer months it is critical the hens are able to drink as much water as they need. Nipple drinkers are simply inadequate. For our hot climate, one bell waterer per 75 hens does the trick. You can get away with one per 100 hens in cooler climates. Don’t buy anything but a Plasson bell waterer. Simply put these are the best on the market. We have Plasson quick connect valves located strategically throughout our pastures to service water for the cattle and poultry. I run a 1/2” black poly pipe to the shelters from this watering point to fill the reservoirs.

5) Well designed roosts are an important component to your shelter design. The hens naturally want to roost on something so don’t just make them sleep on the ground. Our roosts are strategically designed to maximize space within our shelter. We use a V-design and space the roosts 12” apart vertically. You want to figure 6” of roost space per hen at minimum. I prefer wood roosts made from either 1x2’s or cedar staves. Wood is important because you don’t want the hens feet freezing to the roost during a cold, wet winter night.

6) When it comes to nest boxes it’s all about what you can afford. For years we have used standard 10 and 12 hole nest boxes salvaged from old poultry houses in East Texas. We bought these years ago for $30 apiece, which is a steal. New these boxes are close to $300. We use turf nest pads that are easy to take out and clean. Recently we have begun to switch to roll-out nest boxes made by HenGear. They are a bit pricey, but well worth it. I have seen two major benefits with the roll-out boxes: 1) the eggs are cleaner which saves us time in the processing facility cleaning eggs and 2) there are less cracked or eaten eggs which saves money.

7) Most folks don’t think about good door design for their shelters. It’s easy to build a door that’s too heavy and hard for folks to manage. Simply consider weight and ample space for the hens to enter/exit. Perhaps more than one door and a few feet wide. These can be small doors that are easy to open and close. You also need to be able to enter the shelter easily to collect an egg or do some cleaning. For this I like to build a big door on one end that isn’t opened unless needed.

8) In our hot climate the sun can absolutely cook eggs. There are two ways to avoid that: 1) direction your house where the afternoon sun can’t penetrate your nest boxes or build a long overhanging roof. Our roof overhang is a solid six feet. This provides more than enough shade on the nest boxes and gives the flock even more shade during the summer.

9) We have been using steel turkey feeders for years. It’s hands down the best way to feed bulk. I feed free-choice and there is probably a lot of folks who would argue with me about that. We have done a rudimentary study for several months on feed consumption with free-choice and daily rationing. With the daily ration each hen was allotted .25 lbs of grain per day. Egg production and performance was normal. With the free-choice each hen consumed about .3 lbs of grain per day over a 30 day period. The difference is meager and doesn’t justify the extra labor of hand feeding a ration twice or sometimes three times per day. We mount our feeders on wood skids so they can be easily moved when we rotate the shelters.

10) Get a Livestock Guardian Dog (LGD). If you are going to be in the pastured poultry business you need several of them. Check out my earlier blog about predator prevention. I don’t like using poultry nets. They are expensive and don’t work very good in my opinion. If you have a good LGD you don’t need nets.

11) When searching for breeds of laying hens there are several important factors to consider. I look for a bird that is docile, can produce 300 eggs per year, tolerant of the environment and has good egg qualities (shell quality and size). I have used hybrids such as ISO Browns, Amberlinks and NovGen Browns over the years and like them all.

12) Collecting eggs isn’t something we think about in shelter design, but it’s an important part of the process. I still prefer to use old fashioned wire egg baskets. Our basket hold ten dozen eggs comfortably and travel easily in the back of our RTV or truck. A lot of folks like to put the eggs directly into plastic flats, but I simply find them hard to handle out on the pasture.

13) We provide artificial light to our flocks with a HenLight. They are easy to install and do the job. Our winter production remains steady and it’s well worth the relatively small investment. Some folks prefer to go the natural route and let production drop severely during the winter (lower daylight months). There’s nothing wrong with that, but for economic reasons I need the hens to maintain high production throughout the year.

14) The last consideration with house design is movement. Make sure that the tongue of the trailer is easy to hook up with one person. Efficiency is important with everything on the farm. Simply put if a job can be done by one person instead of two then you will be more profitable. We recently designed a hook and eye attachment for the 3-pt on our small John Deeere 2020 tractor. It’s easy for one person to back up, hook onto the house and move it to the next location. When moving the house within a pasture don’t move more than 20 or 30 yards at a time. Any further and the hens tend to loose track of the house. When they loose track of the house you will find a large group simply sleeping under the stars where the house was formerly located. Also, early morning moves around day light are best. Evening moves seem to disrupt roosting. Another consideration is when switching pastures and making long moves over a greater distance it’s best to do it before morning light. I make these long moves at about 4 AM. The hens are still roosting and it doesn’t disrupt production.

That wraps up almost everything I can think of when it comes to building your shelter for laying hens. If there is something I missed or you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Need help designing your poultry system or marketing your products? We offer consulting services that can help you avoid all of the costly mistakes and build a profitable enterprise. Contact us for more information.