Ventilation question

My husband and I, total newbies to chickens, are going to drive the first nails in our new coop this week. (yea!) We know ventilation is really important, but I'd appreciate your advice if we've planned for enough. For our 4x6, 5' high house we're putting in:

A. built-in, all the time vents on 3 sides in the top 2 feet of the house. (The decorative wooden type we found at Lowe's.)
B. Wire mesh "windows" with wooden flaps we can open when it's warm and close when it's cold on 3 sides.
C. That space up where the top of the wall ends and the roof begins, meshed in.
D. Pop door
E. Husband suggested a "dormer" vent in the roof. His plan makes it sound like it wouldn't leak when it rains, and we could cover it in the winter.

Is this enough, or will we have a summer sauna? Is it just right, or will we have an arctic blast in the winter? As we're in western Washingtobn, both summers and winters are relatively mild, but we do have our hot and cold days. We plan on fluffy, feathery, cold tolerant breeds (Buff orpingtons, barred rocks, etc...)

What do you think?

--Nikki

That sounds good to me. I live in east Texas where last summer we had 60+ days of over 100 degree weather in a row, the worst drought in 60 years and it was HOT!! I have 12" of hardware cloth all around the bottom of the coop, large panels of hardware cloth to catch breezes, and the door is wood frame with hardware cloth. I staple opened up plastic feed sacks over the big panels in winter, and cover 2 sides at the bottom.

If your girls get hot, you can give them frozen treats--watermelon rind, canteloupe and things like that.

Thanks! If your girls can handle a Texas summer, I"ll stop worrying about our "heat." (We moved here from the Mojave desert, and we laughed when folks thought 80 was a heat wave!)

The other part of my question stands, though. Although our winters are mild by, say, North Dakota standards, we usually have a couple really cold weeks (like in the teens at night) per winter. Will my coop be too drafty for those times? Would I need to move a heat lamp out there?

Thanks in advance!
--Nikki

i have the same problem, i am converting a 8 by 10 shed into a coop and i need to figure out the right amount of ventilation because it gets pretty hot in the summer, and although this winter has been so warm, most are bitter cold.

nikki1 said:

Thanks! If your girls can handle a Texas summer, I"ll stop worrying about our "heat." (We moved here from the Mojave desert, and we laughed when folks thought 80 was a heat wave!)

The other part of my question stands, though. Although our winters are mild by, say, North Dakota standards, we usually have a couple really cold weeks (like in the teens at night) per winter. Will my coop be too drafty for those times? Would I need to move a heat lamp out there?

Thanks in advance!
--Nikki

Click to expand...

I laid 2x4's flat for the roost. That gives them a surface wide enough to settle down on and keep their feet warm. Remember, your girls are wearing fluffy feathers, just keep them out of a draft. I have a poop board under the roost that keeps the wind from blowing up their bloomers. A heat lamp might lead to a fire if not careful. I would be more concerned about keeping warm water in front of them. We had some weather last winter in the low 20's and I had to use my lunch break at work to break ice out of the horses trough and give the chickens warm water......we soooooo don't know how to deal with frozen weather here!

What I did was put insulation in the roof bays, it really makes a difference in the summer. Before I did you could feel the heat coming from the ceiling as I have asphalt shingles on the roof which really suck the heat. It was hotter than H...E... double hockey sticks LL in there,after its was 15 degrees cooler.

Oh my goodness! READ THIS!!
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/630129/alert-deadly-unmarked-bulbs