Wooden backyard chicken coop with a covered run on a frosty morning

Highveld Winter Coop Plan

Insulated dual-purpose housing for frosty inland nights

A drawn-to-scale plan for six to eight dual-purpose birds, built around a timber coop with a raised floor, 40 mm insulated walls and a vented ridge. The ridge pulls ammonia out of the house without opening the birds to the cold that rolls down off the escarpment after dark. Floor space is worked at 0.35 square metres per bird, and a broody nook can be shut off when a hen goes down on eggs.

What the plan covers

Timber frame, raised floor and 40 mm insulated wall build-up
Vented ridge detail with baffles against downdraught
Broody nook that closes off from the main floor
Run layout: windbreak wall, covered scratch area, mesh skirt

Where it suits and where it does not

Best for inland frost belts and cold Highveld nights
Not the right shell for humid coastal air, where cross-ventilation matters more than insulation
Assumes a level stand and room for a windbreak on the prevailing side
Deep bedding needs topping up through winter, not a weekly full clean

Brooding when the power drops

The notes mark the point where a heat lamp stops being reliable during load-shedding and give a hot-water bottle brooder swap that holds warmth through a two-hour outage. Chicks are kept in the broody nook with the door closed until they feather out.

Request the plan

Pair it with the Coastal Humidity Coop Plan if you keep birds on two sites.

Author

Marlene du Toit drew the Highveld Winter Coop Plan after eleven winters on the same stand

Marlene keeps a mixed flock of Boschveld and Potchefstroom Koekoek on a smallholding outside Klerksdorp, where the first frost lands in late April and the last one can drag into September. She has rebuilt the same coop three times over the years, mostly because the first two versions let cold air sit on the roost and the bedding never dried out.

The plan on this page is the third version. It carries the fixes she made along the way: the raised floor, the 40 mm wall cavity, the ridge vent that pulls ammonia up and out without dropping the internal temperature. She also wrote the notes on swapping a heat lamp for a hot-water bottle brooder, because load-shedding at 4am is a real problem when you have chicks under a lamp.

Marlene works with a local carpenter on the cut list and checks every dimension against the 0.35 square metres per bird rule before a plan goes out. If you are building for six to eight dual-purpose birds and your winters bite, this is the layout she would hand you.

Get in touch

Email: info@redfoxfowl.com
Phone: 0180850775
Post: 740 du Plessis Lane
Thandiport, NW 4898

Questions about the cut list, the broody nook or the windbreak wall go straight to Marlene. She answers between morning and evening rounds, so give it a day.