Cold Temps bring frozen breath on chickens - opinion?

[Howard E]

To Ash, the OP:

Would you believe the ventilation on this coop?

We were around -6F last night. No frost on the birds and no frostbite either. Hard to believe and understand, but this is what well ventilated AND draft free looks like. That screened in area remains wide open year round.

As to how much ventilation should you provide in a chicken coop? Experts recommend at least 1 SF ventilation per 10 SF of floor area. The Woods house above has 4X that amount.

One 5 inch round hole offers roughly 20 square inches of area. One Square foot is 144 square inches. So if you are using 5 inch round holes, you need to provide about 7 of those to get you to 1 SF, and have them well away from the areas where the birds roost. You don't want drafts. Helps to put one hole low and the rest up high so warmed, moist air will flow up and out.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

@Howard E With a coop like that, do you have to take into consideration the wind direction and the direction the open area faces?

 

[Howard E]

No. Open area always faces south into the winter sun (in temperate north america climates).

Almost impossible to believe but wind has little affect on this thing. The reason being is the house is 8' wide and 12' deep....the narrow side being open. The only wind movement one feels is as deep as the window. Along the back, where the birds roost, air movement falls off to almost nothing.......regardless of what wind is doing outside.

In the summer, to increase air flow and movement, I open the side windows. This does let more air in and creates more air movement to cool the thing off.

 

[Howard E]

BTW, one way to check on how drafty your coop is, hang long strips of thin ribbons (I use plastic flagging tape) from the ceiling. Several feet long. If there is air movement, they will dance around. If not, they hang limp. On the coop area above, ribbons hanging through the roost bars in the back barely move at all.

 

[WhatAboutBob?]

To Ash, the OP:

Would you believe the ventilation on this coop?

View attachment 1223868
We were around -6F last night. No frost on the birds and no frostbite either. Hard to believe and understand, but this is what well ventilated AND draft free looks like. That screened in area remains wide open year round.

As to how much ventilation? 1 SF ventilation per 10 SF of floor area.

One 5 inch round hole offers roughly 20 square inches of area. One Square foot is 144 square inches. So if you are using 5 inch round holes, you need to provide about 7 of those, and have them well away from the areas where the birds roost. You don't want drafts. Helps to put one hole low and the rest up high so warmed, moist air will flow up and out.

 

[Sunshine Flock]

When you look inside my coop, it looks like I have plenty of ventilation. But today I'm doing some math and boy is it humbling realizing I've come up way short. I never made the time to measure and compare to the one square foot per chicken recommendation.

But @lazy gardener made a really going point: There's a point where you're not going to be able to control for visible moisture when they breathe. So implement the square foot rule as a good guide to see where you're at.

I'm reading all these discussions and learning what I can.

 

[lazy gardener]

Howard, I envy you your woods style coop.

 

[Howard E]

Howard, I envy you your woods style coop.

I think it is the Gold Standard by which all others should be measured. There are several versions of the Woods house running from as small as 6' x 10'.......good for up to a dozen birds........all the way up to the base model of 10' x 16'.......good for 3 to 4 dozen birds.....and larger. The more you study this thing, the better it gets.

 

[centrarchid]

The indicator for insufficient ventilation is frosty walls. Frost where they breathe on themselves under a wing just says their feathers are holding their body heat in very well.

I think the riskiest time for frostbite is when we have rain changing over to ice or if folks close their vents trying to prevent drafts. A draft is air blowing on the chicken hard enough to ruffle the feathers. That causes heat loss. I'd rather say "block wind" because that's really the goal, not sealing everything up tightly, and it's less likely to trigger an overreaction in the caretaker.

Very good post.

Frost on birds that is of concern continues as even very slight moisture that is under the exposed feathers parts. Such birds are not able to effectively fluff up.

 

[Toothpick]

Last night it was about 15 degrees here. Not sure what the wind chill was, but probably close to zero. Unbeknownst to me, the door to the chicken coop had closed. So my chickens were out in the cold all night. They have a little plywood shelter with a few roosts to get in the run to get in to but it's completely open on 1 side with a 3" gap all around the roof. I found them roosting in it around 9pm when I discovered the door to the coop was closed. I opened the door but they were already roosting and they are not going to move. So they stayed out in the cold all night.

Looking at them this morning you'd think it was summer time. I didn't see any concerns. They got cold no doubt but were fine.