Making a metal shed into coop. How to winter and summer proof it?

[trimmer66]

I'm going to buy an 8'x6' metal shed for about $150 and turn it into a nice coop with a 10ft run. My conundrum is I live in Ohio where summers reach 95 and winters reach -30. How do I make sure its nice and warm in the winter but cool enough in the summer it doesn't cook them out? I raise golden comets so they are a cold hardy breed but I don't just want them to survive I want them to be comfortable.

 

[Hokum Coco]

I'm going to buy an 8'x6' metal shed for about $150 and turn it into a nice coop with a 10ft run.

I have a 4x8 metal coop had it for years. I insulated it with Styrofoam and cover the insulation with the veneer off of interior doors. Warm in winter and cool in summer with plenty of air circulation. Predator proof (as long as I remember to close up the doors) and rodent free. I kept as many as 26 birds in three level coop with no problems and they stayed in the coop all winter never venturing outside hardly ever. I scraped the metal doors in favour of hinged wooden door. Metal doors were impossible due to freezing litter in the tracks.

 

[Blooie]

I am generally against any insulation in a coop. When I started out I was determined to insulate that puppy within an inch of it's life - being in Northern Wyoming near Yellowstone Park our winters can get pretty brutal. But calmer heads prevailed, and we ended up with a coop that has tons of good passive ventilation in winter and passive and active ventilation in summer, and my birds did extremely well in their non-insulated, non- heated coop. Not even a case of frostbite. (Well, except for one little chick named Scout, but that's a whole 'nuther story!) My coop is a wooden one we built ourselves.

However - you are planning to use a metal shed, which presents an entire new set of logistics to consider. It will get hot, hot, hot! So what the other posters have said cannot be overstressed - ventilate and ventilate well! And using a metal shed is one place where I would use insulation, just as Klopklop and Bryant Redhawk said. Don't forget shade. If at all possible, locate your coop where there is some shade...invent it if you have to. Maybe draping some kind of fabric over the entire setup. Landscape fabric works very well to provide shade because air flows through it and every cooling breeze is a help. It's cheap and if it rips, it's easy to replace. You could put a few posts in the ground, attach the landscape fabric, and drape it just along one side, or maybe even tent the setup with it. Of course, natural shade is best, but any port in a storm, right? Without seeing the area you intend to use, it's kinda hard to advise on shade, though. I use landscape fabric and am a strong proponent of it. I have it attached directly to my run, but don't have to shade my actual coop so I'm not sure how that could be done, but I'd sure look into something for shade. A metal shed in the hot sun isn't much different than an empty soda can in a parking lot in the sun! Truth be told, chickens suffer much more from heat than they do cold, as long as they have a draft free but ventilated coop.

Another thing you might look into is an exhaust fan located up high on the walls. If you go to a site that carries parts for older mobile homes, (and they exist, believe me - it's all that keeps this old trailer we live in habitable and still looking good!) they have them. The reason they are ideal is because they have a chain and a motor. They are also designed for the thinner walls that old mobile homes were constructed with rather than being based on 2x4 or 2x6 construction, which means they fit well into the kind of walls we have in our coops. Ours was rigged so that we can either use the chain to keep it open without the motor running, which we do all winter, or have it open and running in the summer. A couple of low vents in the coop and that exhaust fan pulls stale, moist air right up and out, replacing it with cooler, fresh air right at chicken level. Love it!

 

[ShanandGem]

We use a metal garden shed for a coop. It's 10x10. I drilled two 2" holes up high on the rear wall to let in fresh air. It had a vent above the door. There's all kinds of air comes in the bottom as the corrugated metal walls don't fit tight to the floor. Not enough to let anything in but you can see daylight.
Believe it or not I lined my ceiling with tin foil and it helped to keep the heat in the winter. On warm days I open the door and put up a hardware cloth screen my husband built me.
Mine is in a very protected area, wedged between the back of the garage and a 20' high dirt bank.

 

[KlopKlop]

You could insulate with sheets of insulating foam (it's blue and comes in 4x8 sheets from any home improvement store) then cover that with 1/4" plywood. That would help in winter. For summer be sure to ventilate it well to keep it from being a solar oven and it should make a fine coop.

 

[Bryant Redhawk]

First thing to do is improve the ventilation a lot, both low and high vents will create air flow to keep the chooks healthy.

Next thing to do is insulate like KlopKlop mentioned. be sure to leave an air space between the metal roof and the insulation, this helps reduce the heat transfer and keeps humidity lower, the main reason birds get frost bite is high humidity.

Doing those two things will help you have healthy birds that are comfortable in the winter and summer.

 

[rule4]

We have very harsh winters with high snow amounts and weeks of bellow freezing temps and my chickens do just fine without any insulation. My coop is a glorified wooden shed. I keep it well ventilated and use a water heater to keep the water from freezing since I'm away at work for 24hrs at a time. They all fluff up and bunch together on the roost at night. I also have a south facing window to let in some of the daylight. They keep laying all winter.

One other thing I do is wrap the run in plastic sheeting about 2feet high to create a wind block for them when they are outside in the run.It also helps keep the snow drifts out out of the run.

 

[Bryant Redhawk]

I agree with you rule4, chickens are just fine with cold, they have a higher body temp than humans and so heat in the winter is not an issue.

Where I live, Hot and Humid is the summer normal, I insulate for keeping heat out not heat in for winter. I plan to change up our coop to an open north facing wall (covered with Heavy gauge Rabbit wire to keep predators from being able to enter) which will vastly improve the summer air flow. I know they will not have any problems keeping warm in the winter.

 

[aart]

Much advice already given.....will just say:

A small metal shed is one of the hardest structures to modify for a chicken coop.
Hard to cut and attach anything, no ventilation, low roof.
Extreme heat and condensation issues in the cold.
There a was a thread over the last year about a guy (I think in Ohio) that tried it, had a heck of time and it was a nightmare.

 

[KlopKlop]

If he does his homework and gets the ventilation right, heat and condensation should not be an issue.
I add my +1 to blooie's recommendation to putting the coop in the shade. That alone will save you so much hassle