Any ideas for vents in coop?

[auntbea67]

The coop is in afternoon shade, but we need to put in vents as it gets really hot in the summer (we are south of Atlanta). We are reading past posts to get ideas, but was hoping after posting a photo of our coop y'all would have some good (cheap) ideas. It gets cold in the winter, and we do have to keep varmits out, too. It's a work in progress, please excuse the mess!

 

[WestKnollAmy]

It would be neat to make some sort of windows with the split panels like used to be on closet doors (louvered) with screen to the inside to keep out critters and then have plywood panels that are hinged like real shutters to close over them in the winter. Yours would not get too cold in the winter but you would want to keep out wind.
That is what I would do anyhow.

 

[patandchickens]

Having the open front is excellent for ventilation, so you are about 80% of the way there already

If you cut some good-sized rectangular openings on the opposite wall, ideally high on the wall, that will help give some crossventilation and improve things further.

You can make panels to cover part of the open front during wintertime if you really need to but I shouldn't think you'd be getting *that* cold? Maybe just a smaller partly-enclosed area around the roost (for winter) so they can get out of any cold breezes?

If that open front is just chickenwire though (no welded wire) please be real careful and try to replace it with some form of decent-quality welded wire as soon as feasible, as raccoons can just rip that chickenwire right apart if they feel like it (as can dogs, coyotes etc etc)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[JohnBob]

You might consider using air conditioning vent covers like in your house. You can get them at most of the larger hardware stores in various sizes plus they have the dampers that can be opened or closed by a lever to whatever position you need. They dont need to be framed into the wall, just cut a hole the size of the back insert and then screw them to your wall. Most come with screws but I prefer using shorter decking screws because they're tougher and a little larger. Hope this helps.

 

[auntbea67]

Thanks for all of the ideas, I think hubby is going to use air conditioning vent covers. We thought about that first, but I wanted any advice from y'all first to see what would fit best for us.

We have already planned on changing out hte chicken wire, it was just a quick fix at the time. Over the winter we put up a tarp at night if it was windy and made sure they had plenty of hay to bed down in and it worked out great!

I gotta say, from reading past posts, I have all kinds of ideas to pretty the coop up. My husband is going to kill me b/c he and our son do the work, I just come up with the ideas. We started off with 4 RIR's and now have 8 hens, 1 roo, 1 Royal Palm hen and 8 naked necked babies...