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First, you DO have a heat source in the coop already, everybody does. The chickens. Seriously.
Second, an insulated building with windows will heat up quite well on winter days. THis is not theory, this is reality. And i don't mean 'greenhouse-like expanses of glass', I mean just the regular amount of windows that a typical coop would have.
Third, heating the coop in daytime in winter is not generally a problem -- it is night time cooling that you want to minimize.
And finally, here is the big thing, the more insulation you have, the more VENTILATION you can also have.
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I'm sorry but this is entirely incorrect.
Insulation is NOT in any way going to cause condensation or humidity. Quite the opposite, it reduces condensation and allows your ventilation to more effectively remove humidity.
There is a BIG difference between a coop and a house. In houses, ventilation is relatively low, thus a build up of humidity is more of a problem. However, notice that in olden days, when houses were (often inadvertantly!) pretty well-ventilated, because there were drafts coming in all over the place and sometimes you had to leave windows cracked to keep the fire burning properly and safely, and furthermore there were no vapor barriers other than the paint on th wall, humidity was *not* much of a problem. Mold and mildew in bathrooms and around windows is a fairly modern feature of houses, since they became so much tighter.
In a coop, you need to have a good bit of air exchange to get rid of humidity and ammonia. Your best way of removing that stuff is to get as much into the air as possible so that removing X amount of air removes as large a parcel of that staleness as possible. Warmer air holds more humidity. Thus the warmer the air is at the ceiling of your coop, where it is leaving your vents, the more humidity you are removing from the litter and atmosphere.
I want to stress that this is NOT theory. It is well worked out from decades and centuries of raising animals in barns. Honest.
You are always better off insulating, because it allows more ventilation and better air quality (not just because of keeping the coop warmer). It can also in some circumstances keep the coop cooler in summer (depending how well your nights cool off).
The only downsides to insulating are the initial extra cost/work, the fact that mice sometimes nest in the insulation, and the fumes given off by foam insulation in a fire (but frankly, in a coop fire you're likely losing your chickens no matter whether you have foam insulation or not). Also in some circumstances you may have to take care to provide sufficient summertime ventilation in a well-insulated dark colored coop with considerable exposed thermal mass.
Pat
