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- #11
- May 12, 2014
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This is my first time with the chickens just pooping right onto the soil, so I'm not sure how it will work out. I'm definitely going to mix the soil. I may lock the birds out of the greenhouse about a month or more before I plant anything in there. It's all new to me. Last year I was using 5 gallon containers to grow in and I let the birds into the greenhouse for the winter. They dug all the dirt out of the pots and mixed it all in with the pine shavings. It was too much work to separate, so I dumped everything outside and started over with fresh soil... lesson learned!
The temperatures and ventilation have not been an issue where I live. It's so dry here. In the summer we keep the door closed between the coop and greenhouse. The door is insulated and the coop has all the vents at the top,so it stays quite cool. After building my planter in the greenhouse this summer I found it to be a great thermal mass. It has a lot of soil and there's a reserve of water in the bottom of it. It kept the temperatures from swinging too much. Before, when I had small containers in there, I found it difficult to keep from getting too hot during the day and I had to put a heater in there at night. This year I didn't use a heater and my tomatoes never froze.
I have never used a heater in my coop even when the temps were well below freezing. I have a small fish tank heater set on a timer in a 5 gallon bucket of water with horizontal nipples. It keeps their water from freezing, but I think it also helps the temp in the coop. That and heat from the birds themselves keeps the coop comfortable. I have 11 chickens now....chicken math. Lol!
The temperatures and ventilation have not been an issue where I live. It's so dry here. In the summer we keep the door closed between the coop and greenhouse. The door is insulated and the coop has all the vents at the top,so it stays quite cool. After building my planter in the greenhouse this summer I found it to be a great thermal mass. It has a lot of soil and there's a reserve of water in the bottom of it. It kept the temperatures from swinging too much. Before, when I had small containers in there, I found it difficult to keep from getting too hot during the day and I had to put a heater in there at night. This year I didn't use a heater and my tomatoes never froze.
I have never used a heater in my coop even when the temps were well below freezing. I have a small fish tank heater set on a timer in a 5 gallon bucket of water with horizontal nipples. It keeps their water from freezing, but I think it also helps the temp in the coop. That and heat from the birds themselves keeps the coop comfortable. I have 11 chickens now....chicken math. Lol!
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