Building a rooster shed is a little more involved as it requires a little more soundproofing that a regular chicken coop in the suburbs.
Cities and towns have council restrictions that protect our neighbours from excessive or irritating noise due to close proximity. Always enquire with your local council before embarking on poultry ownership, in particular that of roosters as some councils ban them all together.
My council, fortunately does permit a rooster or two within the guidelines of keeping the noise and smell to a minimum.
Earlier this year I launched myself into my first ever breeding program, incubating fertilised eggs albeit. So from 12 eggs only 6 purebred Australorps hatched (long story), which resulted in 3 hens and 3 cockerels (roosters).
AND my 12 year old son has also begun his leap into chicken ownership this year too, saving up his birthday and Christmas money to buy two Rhode Island Red hens for breeding with.
So all this enthusiastic chicken ownership has meant that cockerels are now in our yard and will soon need to be separated from the girls only to be united with them when we want to start the next stage of our breeding program from scratch.
Cluck Norris already started his vocal training from 5 weeks of age...in my lounge room!
Two Techniques for Quieter Roosters
To keep our roosters a little quieter there are two things we can do.
1. Rooster No Crow Collar
2. Rooster Box or Soundproof Coop
Collars are great as they do make a rooster's ability to crow much more quieter as it restricts the air sac from being fully inflated. They still crow but are no louder than a hen. (See my Links page for a list of online sellers)
Rooster Boxes are purpose built for housing the rooster over night to almost deaden their early morning crow.
We chose not to go down the Rooster Box route due to summer heat here in South Australia.
If you are interested in building your own Rooster Box/Night Box click here.
We chose to make a Soundproof Coop instead from a small garden shed from Stratco.
The reason we wanted to make a soundproof coop was to also limit early morning noise for ourselves and have another coop to separate the boys to if/when they need time out from the hens. We are expecting to have two or three boys at any one time.
Number one problem with our plan: The shed really needs an internal frame in which to place soundproofing materials or insulation.
We chose a small shed that had no internal frame, so my hubby had to come up with some inventive ideas.
Walls
We had a left-over roll of insulation from a previous renovation ready to use, but as we could not find a way to make it fit properly, we used spray on foam fill covered with white MDF boards and silicone in between sheets.
The door had to also be done, so that was easily achieved by taking it off of the hinge and working on it horizontally.
Excess foam was easily cut off once it had dried, so everything was done in slow stages.
The heat can be so bad in Adelaide that it really was our top priority. Air flow is very important in poultry sheds due to the ammonia from their droppings. Respiratory health of our flock is high on our list of health care.
We used aluminium u shaped bars, cut them to size to make a frame. The sliding window was made from some left-over kitchen back splash cut-offs. They won't weather like wood can. When inserting into the shed side, we also attached wire and secured it all in place with pop rivets.
We inserted two windows for flow through.
To stop the splash-back doors from rattling, it was a simple as pinching the aluminium u bars with a pliers to tighten it.
As noise travels upwards we also tackled the ceiling with removable thick MDF boards and brackets. They have to be thick enough so that they will not bow. And to that we stuck on self-adhesive soundproof bats (available at Bunnings).
It made an instant difference to the sound of the shed once the door was closed.
We made it removable in case we ever need to thoroughly clean the shed in future to ensure that no mites or lice are hiding in those places. The bats can be removed and fresh one applied.
It may not be enough, so we are still considering sticking old egg cartons around inside along the tops of the walls only, up next to the bats, if necessary. Only time and vocal strength will tell.
The boys won't be requiring any nesting boxes but they will need some perches, especially with height. Roosters love height. So we created a stand alone wooden frame that can be easily removed for cleaning. Keeping in mind how big their feet are and what would be comfortable for them to perch on.
Stepping in and out of the door also looked like it could get muddy, so we recycled an old wooden sleeper from the garden and placed it as a door step.
Other pieces of wooden sleepers were also used around the run along the fence line to help deter burrowers and give the boys something drier to walk on in the wet.
We have erected a fairly high fence around the coop with (spinning) PVC pipes around the top to keep the boys in and the girls out. We are still considering enclosing the entire run to keep the pigeons out and create a rooster playground that means lots of climbing frames for height.
Not finished yet, but will be in use very soon.
I hope this has been a good insight into our coop creation.
If you have made a special soundproof rooster coop, please share it with us.