Here are some replies I have produced for people in the past.
First let me say that you shouldn't compromise your design because you might want to use it for guinee pigs. They are completely different in their needs for example nestbox and access for egg collection so design it for chx and worry about your guinee pigs later.
Learn a little about the needs of your birds and then decide on your method of husbandry before you even start. Don't just worry about the house either the run needs to be thought through as well as they will spend even more of there waking hours in the run than in the house. The house is just for roosting and housing the nestboxes.
There's no such thing as a universal chicken house design it very much depends on how you intend to manage your birds and your available space etc. Also you need to know about Red Mite and how to design a house to reduce the risk of infestation. I'd be a little wary of off the shelf designs as even housing manufacturers make very bad design mistakes and I wouldn't trust a DIY design plan unless it was from a very experienced keeper who also understands materials and wood work design. A rare combination. I'd advise you to learn about the needs of your birds (you'll need to anyway) decide on your husbandry methods and design your own house and don't forget about the run which is equally as important as the house.
The following are cut and pastes which may not be entirely relevant to your needs but there's some useful advice which might help your understanding.
Best of luck
HF
ADVICE ON HOUSE DESIGN
There's a lot to learn and deciding on your system of husbandry is the starting point. It must suit the space you have available and the time you have to maintain the runs and house. If you have a labour intensive system or house design you will soon get fed up and neglect the routine cleaning tasks and your dreams of happy productive chickens wandering contentedly over a pristine lawn will quickly become a smelly insanitary eyesore with sickly chickens scratching about on fouled earth and producing poor quality eggs. So time spent now on learning and planning will payback many fold in the future.
Once you know how much space you have and whether you are going for a system of moveable arks which is great if there's plenty of grass and you just want a few birds ((less than 6) as you can keep the grass growing by rotating the run. For this you need an easily movable ark. Another system of rotating runs is to have a semi movable ark sand two adjoining runs you can use a rotational system with one run resting while you use the other. You can use electric nets in a system of easily relocatable runs. If you don't have the room for rotating runs you can build a fixed run and there are lots of possibilities from fully enclosed cages to tunnel type runs connected to a fixed house. You will need to think about the floor material which will need regular cleaning and sanitising. All these different systems might dictate a different house design, for example if you want it to be movable.
The following links will give you some general tips on run and house design and in particular internal design a much abused topic.
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=61242.msg711486#msg711486http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=56897.msg670192#msg670192http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=61068.msg709524#msg709524First you need to recognise that a chicken house is not a wendy house for small people with lounges, dining areas and bedrooms it's first and foremost a dry, warm and secure place to roost at night. In fact your birds should spend almost all of their daylight time in the run foraging. For this reason you should not keep feeders and drinkers in the house where they will get knocked over or spilled and encourage vermin and unsanitary conditions. Chickens don't eat or drink at night. The key things to include in the house are roosts were the chickens will spend the night. Ideally these should be a 'rack' of 4 to 6 perching bars about 50 - 70 mm wide rectangular with rounded edges. The space between the perches should be 50 to 70mm similarly. Underneath the perches should be a droppings area which the birds have no access to. This should be easily accessible for cleaning. Perches should be removable for cleaning. Ideally the house should have a completely flat floor and all fittings should be lift out for cleaning so the litter can be swept out without it being trapped in a corner. Apart from the perches the floor space can be minimal just to provide access to the perches and the nestboxes. There's no virtue in allowing lots of floor space which just encourages the birds to scrat about in and foul.
The other thing normally included in a house are nestboxes. It's not essential they should be in the house and external nestboxes are equally acceptable to the chickens however most houses have them. Nestboxes ideally should be accessible to collect the eggs from outside. They should have shutters to close them at night to discourage roosting in them so they get fouled and need cleaning out each morning.
A house should suit the needs of the birds and make life easy for you. Get it wrong and the birds will roost on a floor which is fouled with droppings or in their nestboxes which will also get fouled and be an insanitary location for the eggs. You will spend an unnecessary amount of time poo picking the house and cleaning out the nestboxes each day. Get it right and your work load is minimised, the house will only need cleaning once every 3 to four weeks and the birds will have a clean sanitary environment without your constant attention. That's the aim anyway.
A good material to use is external grade plywood and if you use glue the only thing to avoid is the flexible bathroom sealer type which the birds will pick out. Best to use waterproof PVA glue though. Don't use felt on the roof which is red mite heaven. The roof can be corrigated bitumen board such as Onduline which is great for the job and provides natural under roof ventilation (most important). Don't waste effort painting or treating the interior. A light softwood natural finish is fine."
"MORE HOUSE ADVICE
There's a tendancy for over protective keepers to treat chx like people and expect them to behave in the same way as we do. A chicken house isn't a house in the same sense that we have houses with living accommodation, they are really just substitutes for safe secure roosts so in fact they only need to provide roosting accommodation. Assuming they are "free range" there's no need to provide them with 'dining rooms' and 'lounge areas' or any floor space not needed for access to their roosts. Also for convenience most houses also have nestboxes, though you can equally have external boxes if you wish. Chx should have an exercise area outside in the form of a run or ranging area they spend the daylight hours in foraging. Their food, water and shelter from the elements should be provided for in their run. Placing feeders in the house just encourages them to constantly go in and out causing the house to be fouled more than necessary and increasing your maintenance load and making the roosts less sanitary. Spilled food and water adds to the messy unsanitary conditions.
On this topic I often see houses with inadequate roosting accommodation with just a single roosting pole across a large area of floor space. The exact opposite of what is required. Roosts are best implemented as grills of roosting poles (rounded rectangular bars 5cm x 3cm is ok) suspended around 20cm above a droppings area so their droppings fall through the poles (rails) onto an absorbant litter covered floor which the chx have no access to. The grill of poles can be sloped upwards from front to back so early roosting birds move away from the walkway. This arrangement prevents them scratching around in their droppings and walkways can be kept to the minimum necessary to enable them to mount the perches and nestboxes. Adopting this way of husbandry there's no need to poo pick the house and a good fortnightly clean out is all that's needed (though you can if you feel the need of course). With no requirement to provide food and drink the house can be much smaller than many people think and a largely roosting area of 1sq foot per medium sized L/F is well adequate and allows them to huddle up for warmth in winter on cold nights. Having lots of open floor space discourages them from roosting properly and they often sleep on the floor in the litter or in the nestboxes. It's often the case when keepers post about their birds not roosting or using the nestboxes they've really caused the problem by not providing adequate roosts.
A well thought through house design incorporates good husbandry practise catering for the needs of the chx along with easy of maintenance and robust durability in use."
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May 31, 2011, 10:13