Wet Coop bedding

[moukoyui]

Hello, this is my first time posting. I am a new chicken mom. I am trying to solve our chicken coop mystery. Our chickens have a large 12x18 outdoor run that has natural cover from trees and a small (kit from tractor supply) coop with nest boxes. Our birds are a mixed flock - 2 orpingtons that we purchased as laying hens, and 2 (2 roosters and a hen) that were hatched out at my school ( I am a teacher) that are meat birds. They have free access to the pen and coop all day, but they put themselves to bed at dusk. Their food and water are outside. The coop has spots for 2 low roosts, but the meat chickens cannot use them and typically knock them over.

Sorry for the novel length description, but the problem we have right now is that the coop bedding (pine shavings and hay in the nest boxes) is getting increasingly damp. We live in the Carolina's and have humid weather all year round. Our bedding system worked GREAT in the summer and we hand little smell and nice clean birds. Now that winter has arrived, it does not seem to be drying and I am now bedding a shallow layer and cleaning everyday and it is still smellier than I would like. My meat birds also have dirty breast and belly feathers.

What am I doing wrong?
Help from a chicken newbie in NC

 

[aart]

@aart would probably say: Go out and cut more holes in your coop!

If you wanted more help on this and posted pics of coop and vents maybe we could help?

Actually, I would more likely say the bolded italics ;-)

 

[Howard E]

Do a Google search for "reducing condensation in buildings" and some nearly universal causes and solutions will materialize. This is one example, but the Internet has tons of information just like it:

https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Condensation_in_buildings

Bottom line is they will all say to reduce moisture in the buildings, solution is to a), reduce moisture generated in the building, b) provide heat to allow air to hold more moisture, which is felt as a lower relative humidity and c), increase ventilation to move moisture laden air to the outside.

Most of us see this all the time in our bathrooms. Take a long hot shower with the door closed and the vent fan off and you will step out into a warm, sauna like room, with moisture condensing on everything in sight. Mirrors fogged up, windows fogged up, and just about anything metal dripping wet. But turn off the hot water, open the door, turn on the vent fan or do both and all that will instantly go away. Temp will drop, but all the fog and condensation will go away and the room will start to dry out.

Basic condition is that in any building where air and moisture can move freely back and forth, such as an open sided shed, temp and relative humidity levels will tend to be the same, inside and out. Even closed up, the laws of physics suggest that pressure, heat and moisture levels will try to equalize, only slowed by any barriers that are in place (closed doors, closed windows, vapor barriers, insulation, etc). Managing the movement of heat and moisture is huge issue in virtually all buildings that make an attempt at some form of environmental control.

Think of a chicken house as being like a bathroom. Once we populate a building with birds, things are no longer the same inside and out. The birds themselves are the source of two things......heat and moisture, both of which are going to move to the outside.

So if we could just add heat from the birds or another source, the ability of the warmer air to hold more moisture goes up and the relative humidity level goes down, leading to evaporation of moisture from any wet surfaces. One free and easy way of doing this is in winter is to include lots of window space on south facing walls to allow sunshine to stream in resulting in heat gain from solar radiation. This even helps during the day when the birds are out and about and not in the building. If the house interior heats up any at all relative to the outside temps, it starts drying out. So windows not only add beneficial winter light, but also heat. But they need to face south into the winter sun to allow this to happen.

But in addition to the radiant heat given off by the birds, they also bring in moisture. From their breath, from their droppings and if we have waterers, etc. inside the coop, any spilt water has to evaporate. Also, if the coop has a dirt floor and moisture is being drawn up from the soil, that goes in the air too. These are all sources of water that if not vented, or if enough heat is not added to allow the air to hold it all, will build to the saturation point and start to condense out. In the extreme, moisture will condense on just about everything, including on the birds, will then evaporate from the heat generated by the birds, leading to that cooling effect. They are being chilled. This is really felt at night, when the air is cooling. The cooling effect, taken to the extreme is what causes frostbite. Do a google search on "causes of frostbite in chickens" and almost all of them will make some sort of reference to excessive moisture in the building, combined with zero or sub zero temps. So somewhere around 0F is where the bird's natural ability to ward off frostbite fails. A dry bird can go below that. A wet bird will likely suffer some damage.

So to house birds in zero to sub zero temps, without the need for supplemental heat, two things need to happen. Any heat from the birds and/or solar gain from sunshine streaming in through windows will lower the relative humidity level to help avoid condensation, but the moisture being generated by the birds and other sources is still building. If that moisture is not vented, as soon as the air cools just a little bit, humidity level goes to 100%, the dew point is hit and moisture starts to condense. Think wet bathroom. So there needs to be a controlled level of put and take. A controlled level of warm moist air moving out as it naturally wants to do and being replaced by cooler make up air, which when warmed just a little bit takes up the moisture being generated by the various sources found within the house. In short, a conveyor is setup moving the moisture out but at a controlled rate such that the heat level always stays above the outside temp. That elevated temp is the engine that runs the conveyor. A bathroom vent fan does about the same thing if you run it while taking a hot shower.

In cold climates, (my guess is this kicks in around Zone 6a), insulation is needed in the walls and roof to help hold in the radiant heat generated by the birds to get that 10 to 15 degree temp spike of inside air over that on the outside. Without insulation in sub zero weather, the bare walls will suck the radiant heat out and in turn, radiate it to the outside vs. convection of the warm moist air to the outside. In short, in Zone 5a and colder climates, insulation is likely needed to help keep the conveyor running. We are hearing reports of birds kept in unheated houses down to -20F and colder, but temps inside these houses are about 0F and warmer and no frostbite.

Seriously tricky business getting ventilation right in cold weather climates!

Note: I edited this post to reflect a change from zone 5a to 6a as the threshold area where a person might want to consider adding insulation. I live in zone 6a and we have already been down below zero about 3 or 4 nights.......and we were hearing reports of frostbite from others living in similar areas at the same temps. Some tight houses with high bird populations seeing frostbite at low single digit F temps. Still, that is only a few nights a year, if that. Or, it may go to -10F or worse a few times, even in zone 6a. On the other hand, zones 5a and colder may see those levels 20 or 30 times over the course of a typical winter. So zone 6a is the threshold to consider it, but probably not needed. Zones 5a and colder probably should include insulation in their build. Goal or purpose of insulation in these houses is to reduce condensation on interior walls, and to reflect radiant heat given off by the birds back into the coop vs. letting it be absorbed by the uninsulated walls to radiate out into the cold. Radiant heat trapped in the coop may be enough to raise the temp inside the coop as much as 10 to 20 degrees F over the outside them, and that is enough to bump a -20F outside temp to 0F, and lower the relative humidity level inside the coop in the process, staving off condensation and drying the house out, and thus reducing the chance of frostbite.

 

[mobius]

More experienced folk than I may indeed prevail, but a couple of questions for you:

Is there leakage from rain?

How is the ventilation in the upper part of the coop?

Is there condensation in the coop? From high humidity and low ventilation? Check the walls and roof, any glass or metal areas too...

How are you closing the coop at night? Do you leave the pop door open? or the window?

Is the coop floor itself on the ground? Could moisture be seeping up inside if so?

I have to think, not being experienced with meat birds, that they all still need a roost of some sort. Can you attach the roosts more securely?

Perhaps a poop board under the roost then...that you could scoop out on a daily basis, and consider a product called Sweet PDZ, which I think is zeolite, used in horse stalls to dry up poop and reduce ammonia. That can go on the poop board if you fashion it with a lip...and as a layer under your bedding. You may also need a thicker layer of bedding...I like pine shavings like you are using myself...

and

 

[thomasboyle]

Welcome to BYC!

I have the same issue in winter in CT. Humidity never goes below 60-70%, and is frequently in the 90's or 100%. The humidity is a function of snow being on the ground all winter and temps fluctuating from the 20's to 30's most days. So there is nothing I can do about it unless I want to heat the coop, which isn't going to happen! When the temps are in the 20's, its not an issue as things freeze rather than get wet. But when temps are in the 30's-40's, everything gets wet pretty quickly. I use hay for bedding, and just add a new layer each day so they have a dry layer to walk and sleep on (I have ducks that sleep on the ground). By spring it is 12" deep or so, and the bottom 6 inches composts into the best garden food you can imagine. I shovel it out 2X a year, putting the composted dirt on the garden and any non-composted hay in the compost pile to give it more time to convert to compost. I shoveled the coop out in November, and got 12 heaping wheelbarrow loads of dirt for the garden.

 

[mobius]

Welcome to BYC!

I have the same issue in winter in CT. Humidity never goes below 60-70%, and is frequently in the 90's or 100%. The humidity is a function of snow being on the ground all winter and temps fluctuating from the 20's to 30's most days. So there is nothing I can do about it unless I want to heat the coop, which isn't going to happen! When the temps are in the 20's, its not an issue as things freeze rather than get wet. But when temps are in the 30's-40's, everything gets wet pretty quickly. I use hay for bedding, and just add a new layer each day so they have a dry layer to walk and sleep on (I have ducks that sleep on the ground). By spring it is 12" deep or so, and the bottom 6 inches composts into the best garden food you can imagine. I shovel it out 2X a year, putting the composted dirt on the garden and any non-composted hay in the compost pile to give it more time to convert to compost. I shoveled the coop out in November, and got 12 heaping wheelbarrow loads of dirt for the garden.

@thomasboyle , I would kindly suggest that you may likely have a coop ventilation issue. I have been measuring coop humidity, the chickens warm the coop overnight, the inside temp is warmer than outside by 10-15 degrees, and the coop RH is nearly always lower than outside RH if chickens are inside. My coop seems well-ventilated, and it is completely dry inside. And no smell. I add bedding in the coop about once a month. Mostly for insulation. Other than the chickens and bedding, this ia a non-heated, non-insulated coop. In addition, hay alone may not be the best option.

I would add that there are things you can do about it. The OP is describing a situation that may easily create illness in her new flock. It is important to manage our chickens' environment and correct accordingly.

 

[thomasboyle]

Thanks Mobius. We've been having a very wet winter. It has snowed and rained on a regular basis. Today was the first day without rain or snow of the past four days. We've had 4 inches of rain and 3" snow since Jan 1. Rain is very unusual for CT in winter, but we need it. My pond was down 24" at Thanksgiving, and I checked it this past weekend and it had gained 16" and is now only down 8". As for my coop, the coop doors were wide open today, which is 2 double people doors giving an opening 7'x6' wide. Both windows were wide open, another 2'x3' each. Humidity outside was 85% to 98%, and inside the coop was 81% to 95%. Not sure how to get more ventilation - I can already drive a car into my coop door. The East Coast has been stuck in a very humid weather pattern for the past month, and I think that is the problem right now.

 

[mobius]

@thomasboyle , seems like we all are having humdingers of a winter in various ways! Here is the reason I am interested, and this may help:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ventilation-experiment-post-your-results-here

Glad to see you are measuring...I noticed that when I opened the big clean-out door for the day in an effort to reduce humidity it did not make one BIT of difference.

I did put in eave ventilation which is above chicken roosting head height (installed this summer). Everyone's situation is different! Variables besides local weather include size of coop x number of chickens x amount of ventilation. Your Chickens May Vary (YCMV).

Here I was interested because I didn't want partially frozen chickens, and I needed to know how to tweak the ventilation, as well as if and when tweaking would help...glad I did this because it turns out even when very cold, the humidity is high. Where I live, anyway.

OP, I hope this might help you too!

@aart would probably say: Go out and cut more holes in your coop!

If you wanted more help on this and posted pics of coop and vents maybe we could help?

 

[thomasboyle]

Here's my coop. Let's cut away! Today I had both front doors open as well as both windows on the E and W sides.


This is the south side


North side on the right, east side on the left with the window. Today the window was open all the way. The 2nd story is fully separated from the 1st story except for a 2'x2' access hatch which is kept closed.

As of 9pm, it is 29 out, humidity is 89%. Inside of the coop is 35 with 83% humidity. I closed the front doors at 8pm tonight. Both windows are open 25% right now. I gauge the moisture in the coop by the non-working windows in the front doors. If they frost up on the inside, too much moisture. If they are frost free (or condensation free) I am good. The coop is 2x4 construction with standard fiberglass insulation. Floor is concrete and ceiling is 2x6 rafters with insulation.

 

[BREKEN]

Here's my coop. Let's cut away! Today I had both front doors open as well as both windows on the E and W sides.


This is the south side


North side on the right, east side on the left with the window. Today the window was open all the way. The 2nd story is fully separated from the 1st story except for a 2'x2' access hatch which is kept closed.

As of 9pm, it is 29 out, humidity is 89%. Inside of the coop is 35 with 83% humidity. I closed the front doors at 8pm tonight. Both windows are open 25% right now. I gauge the moisture in the coop by the non-working windows in the front doors. If they frost up on the inside, too much moisture. If they are frost free (or condensation free) I am good. The coop is 2x4 construction with standard fiberglass insulation. Floor is concrete and ceiling is 2x6 rafters with insulation.

I really love your coop very nice! I am also having a moisture issue but just keep adding straw daily for fresh bedding.