Draft free ventilation?! So confused!

[LilyBird]

This may be a dumb question, but how can ventilation be draft free? What does that look like? I know ventilation is super important...but I don't know how I'm going to create that in my small coop. If I added some pictures of what my coop is looking like right now, would someone give me some pointers? I'm lost right now....and I want to get this figured out before I go get my birds. Thank you!

 

[duckets]

Hi LilyBird,

Here is a wonderful thread explaining 'draft free ventilation';

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/454048/good-ventilation-vs-draft-free

 

[Blooie]

If air is moving and the chicken's feathers aren't, that's about right. Easiest way to explain it, I guess, because it was a concept that I had so much trouble with too! You want air flow....moist air up and out. But on cool or really wet days you don't want their feathers moving in the breeze.

In the hot summer here, all of the vents and windows are kept wide open in my coop, rain or shine, and they like their feathers being ruffled. Helps cool them. In winter I close the ones where the wind and snow are blowing from but leave the downwind sides open. If their feathers are ruffling then, they are losing body heat, sort of like if you unzipped your down coat in a cold winter wind. I also leave the pop door open 24/7 (my run is as secure as humanly possible) and I have a floor vent on the opposite wall. Check out the link provided by @duckets

By the way, you are so smart to get your coop designed and built before you get your chickens! I kinda sorta had it backwards when I started last year then found myself in a panic with 22 noisy and very dusty chicks in my husband office and no coop. <Sigh>

 

[LilyBird]

Thank you Duckets! I've gone over there and checked it out.

Blooie, I guess I just don't know if I have enough ventilation! Too funny! My husband won't let me go get birds until we have everything just right. Although I have to wait on him to finish the shed that our run will attach to on the one side, and it's killing me. I might just have some free rangers if he doesn't hurry up! Lol

Here's a pic of my sloped roof ventilation...

 

[Blooie]

I see what you mean. Yep, I agree, you could use more. I guess the first questions are how many birds will you have and what are the dimensions of the coop? You could drill a few 2" holes in the upper walls, then cover them with hardware cloth to keep out wild birds and (at least in my neck of the woods) bats! and that would improve it somewhat. What's on the other side? The back and the side not shown in the picture? You could add a small window. Doesn't have to be fancy. Just a square cut into the wall and then trimmed and covered completely with hardware cloth would work, and you could cover it with plastic during the winter. I saw a coop on here last year, but can't remember where it was now to show you, where the builder had cut a hole in the top of the roof and put in a dryer vent. Yep, just a plain aluminum dryer vent. The bend in the vent allowed moist air to exhaust out but kept cold air from coming right down on the birds.

I'm sure lots of people will chime in with suggestions that are far better than mine. Cute coop! If your run is really secure against predators, you could leave your pop door open too, but that's such a personal choice that I'm not advocating it, just suggesting it.

Edited to add: Look into RV or camper windows and vents, too. Those are usually on the smaller side but get the job done! If you opt to do that, make sure to remove the screen and replace it with hardware cloth. I've camped in an RV - those screens don't even keep out flies!

 

[duckets]

Good Evening Blooie and LilyBird,

I just noticed that both of you all are much farther north than I am here in Georgia, (Where Heat And Humidity Was Invented) and I can certainly understand the balance of proper ventilation and life threatening 'drafts' in cold weather. I have a basic 'heater' I found instructions for on youtube that I use in cold weather, (approx 1 or 2 weeks down here, LoL)

We're talking about a 'new' 1 gallon metal paint can mounted sideways, with a ceramic light bulb socket inside. After inserting a 75 watt bulb you can replace the metal lid (carefully so not to damage the bulbs filament), I only replaced one bulb all winter and it stayed on 24/7 from Dec to March.

 

[Blooie]

Hello right back at ya, duckets! Thanks for the tip on the heater. We are definitely a little further north than you are, that's for sure!

I must confess that I don't use any supplemental heat in the coop during the winter. I have found that with that all important ventilation, the chickens don't need it! As long as the upper vents are all working well and the windy side is closed, moist air just flows right out before it can settle around the roosting chickens like a wet blanket. And the pop door is open year round so they spend most of their time out in their run, regardless of the weather conditions. We cover the run in clear greenhouse plastic, and the entrance into the coop from the run is covered box, sort of like a wood tunnel, so it keeps out drafts at the floor level. The other, opposite floor vent is closed during most of the winter, though. We open it during balmy days when temps are in the 20s and 30s.

We haven't had any frostbitten combs or wattles, and they seem to thrive. Those down and feather coats, I guess. We have a worse time with summer heat here. We are very dry - considered semi-desert here, and oh, how the poor girls suffer in the heat! I can't even imagine trying to deal with heat and the humidity. We've lived in Illinois, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and I well remember that draining, oppressive heat. It must be so difficult to keep them comfortable!

You should add your heater to the DIY show us your inventions thread if you haven't already. Betcha folks would jump on it!

 

[duckets]

Hi Again Blooie,

I will certainly agree that most northern animals domesticated and wild, have a much better fortitude when it comes to the cold. It could be another reason why warmer climate animals tend to be somewhat smaller, even deer and squirrels for instance.

And Thank You for asking me to share the 'paint can light bulb heater' in the DIY section, the idea actually came from a few Youtube clips, but I can post a couple of photos and it will practically explain itself.

 

[duckets]

Hi Again LilyBird,

That really is a wonderful coop indeed, if you use light weight chain link with three feet of 1/2 inch hardware cloth on the bottom, your run will be very safe.

Especially if you bury the bottom 8 to 12 inches of fencing in the ground.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I wrote this in another thread you are in but I'll copy it here to make sure you see it.

You keep reading about not letting drafts hit chickens in the winter. These “drafts” are not like the little bit of air movement you might need a candle to see near a window in your house. These drafts are more like breezes that ruffle the feathers.

Just like the wild birds you see outside in the dead of winter, chickens trap tiny pockets of air in their down and feathers. This trapped air is what keeps them warm and provides insulation. It’s not really the down but is the trapped air. Their body heat warms that air and that keeps them warm. Chickens and wild birds can keep themselves warm as long as they stay out of a wind strong enough to ruffle their feathers and let that trapped air escape. You’ll see wild birds at your feeder all winter, even in really low temperatures, but not when a cold wind is blowing. Then they are hiding somewhere out of the wind.

You need ventilation in the winter for two reasons. Ammonia is produced by their poop decomposing. If the poop is frozen it is not going to decompose, but watch out when it thaws. Ammonia is hard on their respiratory system but ammonia is lighter than air. To keep ammonia from building up to dangerous concentrations you just need a hole above their heads. It doesn’t take a huge hole as gravity will provide the energy to remove that lighter than air ammonia out of there.

Water vapor or humidity is the other risk and is a bit harder to come up with the right amount of ventilation you need. Moisture can come from their poop before it freezes but also their breath has a lot of moisture in it. High moisture can lead to frostbite. Warm air like their breath holds more moisture than cold air and also rises. Before it freezes their poop is warmer than frozen air too. It doesn’t seem like much but the warmer (compared to the outside air) more moist air at the top of the coop is what you want to get rid of. Gravity does not provide nearly as much energy to this warm lighter air as it does to that lighter ammonia so you need more ventilation to get rid of it. How much more? That’s hard to answer. It’s going to depend on you ventilate, how many chickens you have, how big your coop is, and how you provide that ventilation.

Roof vents and gable vents can move a lot of air. Ridge vents do too but may become blocked by snow. For these to work best you need an opening down lower to let heavier colder air in which forces the warmer air at the top out. It doesn’t take a lot of difference but the more difference in elevation you have the more air movement you will have. The risk here is that you will create a breeze blowing on the chickens in a strong wind so you have to be a bit careful where you put that opening if it is below the chickens.

Another very popular way to provide a lot of ventilation is to leave the top of the walls open under the overhang to keep rain out and cover those openings with hardware cloth to keep predators out. These provide a way for air to get in so the roof or gable vents work better. If you have two of these or maybe in conjunction with gable vents you can get a breeze blowing across, but as long as this breeze does not hit the chickens on the roost their feathers will not get ruffled and let those air pockets out.

To me, having all the openings above their heads when they are on the roosts is the easiest way to do this, but all you need to do is to create a dead air space where the chickens are. There is an open air coop design that JackE really likes that has one side of the coop open well below where the chickens roost that is used way up in Canada. You create a dead air space back where the roosts are but leave the front open for great ventilation. There are many different ways to do this.

Heat is a much greater danger to chickens than cold as long as you give them a minimum amount of protection from breezes yet provide enough ventilation in winter. I’ve seen chickens sleep in protected spots in trees in weather below zero Fahrenheit with no problems, no frostbite or anything else. One poster on this forum that I really trust talked about chickens spending the winter in trees in northern Michigan. As long as they can get out of breezes they really can keep themselves warm, just like the wild birds.

In the summer with the heat you need lots of ventilation. Openings above and below them or even right at their level on the roosts are good. A breeze doesn’t hurt them when it is warm, it feels good. Having ways to close off that lower ventilation gives you a lot of flexibility.

Good luck!