Chicken coop - ventilation

[Beezy]

Hi guys. My partner and I are building a bigger coop, and he wants to do a floor with holes in it for ventilation. I don't think this is a good idea, but I can't place why. I have stood firm on there being large ventilation rectangles cut out, way up high.

He wants to do floor-holes in addition to that. This seems like a bad idea, right? Can y'all back me up here?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Folly's place]

Bad idea!
Your floor will be covered in stuff very soon, and it needs to be predator proof also.
For very cold weather, upper ventilation is important, and that's also important all year. For anything other than well below freezing, lots more ventilation, but not in the floor. An open south or east side, so leeward, is really good, and can be partially covered with plastic sheeting or something in cold weather.
How about pictures of your design here, with dimesnions?
Mary

 

[MountainWoman73]

You're right. A big reason for the ventilation is to allow moisture from respiration to escape. The warm moist air from respiration will rise, which is why ventilation at the top of walls under the roof works well. Floor holes would just make it cold, and let in mice and snakes.

My coop also has two working windows recycled from our house that I can open in the summer for a cross breeze. They're high enough up the wall to be unreachable by bears and have screens in them for avian predators.

 

[Beezy]

Okay, so I'm at work right now and don't have our original/official plans. But here's my sketch with dimensions listed. To help with deciphering my handwriting:
6' long
4' wide
3' tall on short side, 4' tall on tall side (roof slope)
18" tall legs, 3 of 4 sides will have HW cloth around them, the front side with pop door opens to the enclosed run. All legs and covered sides will be slightly buried and outlined in pavers to go with the aesthetic of our yard.
Egg box/nest box will stick out 1' further, and will be 3' long with three compartments.

The rectangles with hatch marks up top are my proposed ventilation rectangles. Long sides would be 4' long and 6" tall, short sides would be 2' long/6" high.

If I have not explained well enough, please let me know and I will try my best to clarify.

 

[Folly's place]

How many chickens will try to live there?
Do you have experience with very short raised coops? I think that walk-in structures make much more sense, both because it's more room for the birds to fly off their roosts, more ventilation, and especially, comfort and convenience for the humans involved.
You need more ventilation and light in there! A very large opening, with hardware cloth, on the leeward side or sides for sure, not only those strip openings.
Also, roof overhangs provide shade and help keep rain and snow from blowing inside.
Build bigger!!!
Mary

 

[aart]

Great sketch.....simple with all the vitals.

Agrees with a walk-in....easier on keepers and 'extra' height good for high ventilation.

Big roof overhangs, with open soffits is, IMO, the best winter ventilation for cold climates.

 

[3KillerBs]

First, the reason that ventilation belongs up high is that heat and ammonia both rise so they need to be removed at the highest point of the coop.

A summer-only window low on the shady side is a nice supplement to bring cool air in during hot weather, but wire-floor is really only suited to subtropical and tropical environments and difficult to predator-proof.

6' long
4' wide
3' tall on short side, 4' tall on tall side (roof slope)
18" tall legs, 3 of 4 sides will have HW cloth around them, the front side with pop door opens to the enclosed run.

Second, as the owner of a raised, non-walk-in coop I have some suggestions about these dimensions.

I would never make a coop shorter than 4' tall at it's lowest point because having the roof lower than 4' makes it impossible to get the perch higher than the nest box and the ventilation above the birds' heads.

My ladies can, when so moved, poke their heads up enough to look out the monitor when they are impatient for me to let them out in the morning. Any shorter and they would not be able to settle down below the draft in bad weather.

Additionally, I made the mistake of making my legs only 18" tall. Then my Light Brahma turned out to be an "oops rooster" who was, despite being only hatchery quality, a full 2 feet tall and even the Brahma girls were a bit cramped under there. Not to mention the periodic need to retrieve an egg or a stubborn/distressed bird.

Also, it would be nice to be able to put the garden cart actually under the coop at the access door when cleaning out.

Third, speaking of the access door (which I don't see on your sketches), unless you are quite tall you may not be able to reach the far wall. This can make some aspects of chicken care difficult so have a plan about how you will catch a chicken who needs hands-on attention but has wedged herself into the farthest corner, how you will retrieve an egg laid in that farthest corner, how you will clean out the bedding against the far wall, etc.

I will admit that some of my plan for these eventualities is "Summon on of my tall sons to do the reaching for me". Also, for the cleanout I have a very good manure fork.

There are are advantages to the "box on legs" coops -- savings in materials and efficient use of space with the under-coop area doubling as part of the run. But there are drawbacks and it takes awareness and planning to make the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Your partner is mistaken. Why, with respect, are you lifting the whole house 18" off the ground, then running hardware cloth around it? Your chickens can't really use that space, and if they do - say to dust bathe - then get the idea to lay an egg there, you can't retrieve it. Trust me, you don't want to lay in chicken $#!+ covered ground and scoot along to reach for an egg. Neither do you want to try and use a rake - bow or otherwise - to move that crap around when it starts to pile up with only 18" of clearance at the edges.

I have a raised coop, because I have ducks. But my coop is 3' off the ground (conveniently, that's also high enough to roll in a wheel barrow for the once a year clean out). Use the material you would be purposing for a floor to instead run walls to the ground. Deep litter inside, and set the tall wall up as a door or double door - no, you still can't walk in, but you can open the whole side up when the weather is good (and hot) to increase ventilation. And, it will be very easy to clean out, as its not that deep.

I'm also curious about the number of birds you plan on having - that's a pretty tight space, once you've taken away the framing, a roosting bar or two, and any food or water you choose to place in it.

The external access nesting boxes are a good idea, but you probably want them higher, so you have to bend less when checking them. So is your roof angle, but what material are you planning to use, shingles? There's a good chance your birds, depending on breed, will want to perch on your roof, with the low end at just 4.5'. That's not necessarily a bad thing - particularly on hot still nights - but its something you should be aware of when choosing materials. If you go with a metal roof, as many of us do, plan on a 6' wide structure, with roughly 1' of overhang at either end - and make sure to use edging/flashing on it, since its at a height you could potentially bump into it in a forgetful moment.

 

[RoosterML]

Here is the one I made for a customer last year. The metal roofing is great for ventilation, I highly recommend. With it not being deep you can make a large access so you can get at everything from the outside. This way you can avoid making it taller.
Your picture the red is for the door and the blue line to give you an idea of the airflow.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

@RoosterML dimensions? and how many birds was that designed for? I like the fold down door at the side, had originally considered the same for my coop, before I went in a radically different direction.