Enough ventilation?

[Harmony Fowl]

Lots of progress is being made on our new coop. Each day I escort my tool-happy 3-year-old away from home and leave a general idea of what I need, to come home in the evening to more and more completed coop. Yay! But I have a question about whether they’ve allowed for enough ventilation.

The coop is being built to fit up under a homemade carport that is sandwiched between our house and a shed. The north wall of the coop is the house and the south wall the shed, neither of which have any ventilation. The east side of the coop has a large gap for air to move through, covered in hardware cloth. It’s great. It may even be a bit too big. The west side of the coop, the front, there’s only a very small gap left in a portion of the wall and above the door. Is it enough? Am I just comparing it to the much larger opening at the rear of the coop or is it really too narrow? If it matters, the front of the coop is underneath an additional ten feet of covered space before you reach open air.

The first picture is the east rear of the coop, the second the west front of the coop.

 

[jthornton]

I'm sure other more learned will reply but I don't see enough ventilation. At least 1 square foot of draft free ventilation per bird.

JT

 

[NNYchick]

Hi, a couple things that might help to answer your question - where do you live, how severe is your weather. How many chickens do you have or plan to have. Is this where they will be spending a large amount of time. What are the dementions of enclosure and ventilation areas.

 

[lazy gardener]

Do you have any windows planned? Natural lighting is important. General rule of thumb is 1 s.f. of ventilation per bird, or 10% of your floor space: a 10' x 10' coop needs a minimum of 10 s.f. of ventilation!!! Also, all openings must be predator safe. if you could push a quarter through it, a weasel can get in. 1/2" hdw cloth secured over all openings will suffice. Enjoy your build!!!

 

[Harmony Fowl]

Hi, a couple things that might help to answer your question - where do you live, how severe is your weather. How many chickens do you have or plan to have. Is this where they will be spending a large amount of time. What are the dementions of enclosure and ventilation areas.

We live in Virginia, in the mountains. Normally not a ton of snow, but we only just moved to this spot and I’m not sure how much snow will stay at this elevation. Ordinarily we get a few snow storms each season and the snow sticks around for a few days. The temperatures are regularly in below freezing but rarely go down into the teens.

This coop will hold about 25 chickens. The coop is about 10 by 10. The run is about 480 square feet, with a hundred of that being covered and out of the weather but not enclosed.

 

[lazy gardener]

Sounds good.

 

[Harmony Fowl]

Do you have any windows planned? Natural lighting is important. General rule of thumb is 1 s.f. of ventilation per bird, or 10% of your floor space: a 10' x 10' coop needs a minimum of 10 s.f. of ventilation!!! Also, all openings must be predator safe. if you could push a quarter through it, a weasel can get in. 1/2" hdw cloth secured over all openings will suffice. Enjoy your build!!!

Which is the default? 10% of the floor space would mean we’re close with what we have. The back span of hardware cloth stretches the full ten foot length. I don’t know how tall the gap is , but we can make the difference up up front. If the square foot pet bird is more important, we have some more finagling to do.

 

[Harmony Fowl]

Do you have any windows planned? Natural lighting is important. General rule of thumb is 1 s.f. of ventilation per bird, or 10% of your floor space: a 10' x 10' coop needs a minimum of 10 s.f. of ventilation!!! Also, all openings must be predator safe. if you could push a quarter through it, a weasel can get in. 1/2" hdw cloth secured over all openings will suffice. Enjoy your build!!!

On the subject of natural lighting, we have the idea we’ve been playing with of replacing all or part of the roof with translucent plastic roofing. That will be accomplished at a later date, but . . . good idea? Bad idea?

 

[jthornton]

On the subject of natural lighting, we have the idea we’ve been playing with of replacing all or part of the roof with translucent plastic roofing. That will be accomplished at a later date, but . . . good idea? Bad idea?

Over the roost is good to have a bit more light but not over the nests.
JT

 

[NNYchick]

So they won’t be shut in this area except at night to roost and have it opened to be in the covered open area during the day for fresh air and sunshine. If that’s the case it maybe enough, Or you may want to mirror the same gap on the front as the back as long as it’s high above the roost as to not cause a direct draft on them but move air over their head. This is just my opinion as I believe in a lot of ventilation as long as they are dry and no draft blowing on them.