What is a homestead without a chicken coop?
Since we are planning on building our final home in cob and had no previous cob experience, we figured building a chicken coop would be a good way to hone our skills.
Rock Work: Foundation and Staircase
Haffy started working on the foundation, placing the rocks for the wall. This established the footprint of the coop at 22sqm.
He then made a staircase down from the terrace, our main access point.
Fencing
Since we live close to the forest, we have to worry about foxes. We put in a 2-meter fence with one course of barbed wire. For the posts we used eucalyptus from the land.
Working with Cob
Working with cob was a joy. As opposed to the Octagon, which relied heavily on power tools, cob can be made, moved and applied by anyone. We mixed the cob by foot and tarp. We used a mix of our own subsoil, which consists primarily of granite sand – excavated in order to widen the driveway onto our land – and clay slip from clay we bought. The mix was 6:1 sand:clay, with straw mixed in at the end. We settled on a ratio by making test bricks, and found that the 6:1 was the strongest.
At the bottom of the wall we added tubes for passive ventilation and a frame for the chicken door. As the wall progressed we buried sticks with metal wire, for anchors. The wires attach to posts on the inside, as well as secure the roof beams to the wall.
The Roof
For the roof beams we used round wood oak from the land. Since cob walls are load-bearing, we simply put them on top of the wall.
For the roofing we used old tiles from our barn, which we are going to tear down and rebuild as a guest house. The nesting beds were built into a shelf that extends out of the wall on the inside. We built the shelf using corbel technique – where the cobs are worked in with extra straw, which is all oriented in the same way. We designed three access doors into the top wall on the terrace, for easy access to the nesting beds.
Finishing Touches
Tal insisted that the coop needed some embellishments. It also was a good opportunity for her to experiment with cob decorative sculpting. Hebrew readers with a keen eye might notice the Hebrew word for “coop” reworked into an egg basket.
Plastering
While Tal was adding her touch, Haffy applied lime plaster in order to protect the base of the wall from rain. Then it was time for interior design and fence installation.
Chicken Time!
Homiyah 