Coop/Greenhouse sharing a wall

[Foster's Freehold]

I'm thinking about putting my coop on the back side of my greenhouse. I could put hardware cloth on the shared wall, with room to add thick insulation on the greenhouse side for winter. Put it up when I have to fire up the woodstove.
I will be using hardware cloth behind the front wall of windows, then I can take out those windows, take out the insulation boards and have some sincere air flow for the summer.
There would be an entry door from the greenhouse to the coop, I would design all ventilation with both building uses in mind. Basically the greenhouse is going to be open air in the summer and this would give me that air all across the greenhouse and coop.
Sound feasible?

 

[Teila]

Hey minerva long, I am having a little bit of trouble picturing this set up; any chance you could share some pictures?

So the back wall of the coop would also be the greenhouse wall and therefore 'open' on to the greenhouse with hardware cloth while the front of the coop and chicken door lead to the run or free range garden?

 

[Foster's Freehold]

Sorry Teila, I can make a drawing and post later today. Visualize a gabled building, with a line drawn down the middle, so you have two lean to's butted up together. There will be 4 solid walls with an interior wall running the long way down the middle of the building. This would be a common wall, wire for summer, insulation for winter. The whole building is 24 x 24, so the coop part would be 12 x 24 as would the greenhouse part.

My goal in this is to have plenty of room for working both chickens and greenhouse, keep the coop hopefully at above freezing through some small heat exchange via an interior door to the coop, be able to brood chickies in the greenhouse that I can keep warm without electric via thermal mass, have a large building mostly open in the summer to help with summer heat gain (hot and humid climate), it would lessen construction cost and I think it would be cool.

 

[Foster's Freehold]

Guess I should also say, that other than bitties in the spring, there wouldn't be any cross over between coop and greenhouse.
In the winter, they would be two individually operating buildings via doors and insulation. I'd put the waterers by the interior door so that they would be sitting in the heat leakage area, the rest of the greenhouse part would be heavily insulated, the coop uninsulated and vented.
Greenhouse would be the south side, the coop the northside.
For warm months, I'd remove the insulation from the common wire wall, remove the front glass of the greenhouse, remove the insulation from the ridgevent and have opening gable vents to move the hot air out. I plan for huge lower vents on the north side (coop area) to pull through the gable vents and provide a cooling affect. I'll have BA's so that will help them a bit too.
Chickens will have access to a huge run surrounded by a 6 ft chain link fence and a compost hoop house all year.

 

[Foster's Freehold]

Well, thanks to the stupid light lines running right over where I wanted to build the coop, I have to go with another design.
So, I'm going with a 16 wide by 48 ft building footprint. First half will be greenhouse, second half will be coop. This still lets me put the water and fermented feed station on a "warm" wall. I will use lots of water barrels in the gh for thermal mass, fire up the woodstove right before bed, hoping to keep interior heat at above freezing and thus, free flowing water all winter.
The front half of the coop will be communal living for the flock. I can build 4 temporary 3x8 ft breeding pens and 4 temporary 3x3 broody pens. All of these will have run access, also temporary. I'm going to build panels with chicken wire so that they will be sectional and I can mix and match as needed. Still need to come up with a watering system for when all are occupied.
I got it all lined out yesterday and dug two post holes lol. Not a lot I know, but due to health issues, will take some time. I do something on it every day, and even if it takes all summer, by fall they will be in a deluxe coop. Much better than the 4x8 I currently have!

 

[Foster's Freehold]

@aart, The building will be lean-to style with the north wall being 8ft and the south wall 6ft. We don't get a lot of snow load, I'm going to use clear polycarbonate and regular tin for the roof (will use foam board and bubblewrap to insulate it), will put a brace every few feet of rafter. All walls will have windows, with bubblewrap insulation. I will make them removable for summer.

If I cut 6in by 3ft rectangles in the upper part of the north wall (the tall one) and in the lower of the north and south wall, using the cutouts to make hinged doors for closing, would that be enough ventilation? In the 16x24 coop part, I'll keep probably a max of 40 birds plus seasonal chicks.

Will that be enough ventilation? We have awful hot and humid summers and it will take good airflow to keep it cool. Another reason I'm going to insulate the roof.

 

[aart]

I'd leave eaves open all along both walls.

 

[Foster's Freehold]

ok, thanks