My tractor has four open sides in spring, summer, and fall. During winter I cover the open areas with clear roofing panels, except I leave the south side entirely open. This is patterned after Dr Woods House.
Here's a link to his book if you want to read it for free, it's only about 90 pages, and a wealth of information.
https://books.google.com/books?id=o...X&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=true
We've had lots of nights in single digits this winter, and even down to minus 5 degrees, which I've never seen here before. My 13 birds came through just fine, didn't even affect egg production, on 12 hens I'm getting 7 to 11 eggs everyday.
View attachment 1253459 Here's the open south side. You can kind of see the clear roofing panel that closes off the side facing west.
Looks like I've got what we call the "drive thru window" open. Inside the tractor, at that window, is a slot that fits a Home Depot 18"x24" small mortar mixing tub.
If it's so cold my chicken nipple bucket freezes, we use the window to fill the black tub with water every morning. Because of it's large size, the fact it's black, and the fact being on the south side grabs passive solar energy, it usually stays clear of ice into the low twenties until dusk, when it doesn't matter anymore, they don't drink after they've gone to roost.
Next day same drill, no water in the field. But a 7.5 gallon bucket with Gamma screw on lid, makes taking the water out to the tractor easy.
View attachment 1253465
This is the north side, the open wire door is closed off with a clear panel.
Closing off the three sides makes the air in the tractor very still, but the open south side, gives great ventilation.
View attachment 1253467
Looking south through the tractor, towards the open end.
In the modern age of air conditioning, only a tiny percentage of the population has any need to learn how to harness the natural elements to produce a comfortable structure.
Most people think the south side of a structure is the hot side, nothing could be further from the truth.
In winter the sun is very low in the southern sky. That low angle floods south facing openings with sunshine deep into the structure, usually all the way way across it. The radiant energy of that sunlight can easily make you feel 20 degrees warmer in it. What a wonderful gift to our birds in winter.
During the summer the sun is high in the sky, rising almost due east. Almost all the heat loads have now shifted to the east and west walls, and away from the south wall.
Since the sun is so high in summer, very little if any sunshine, comes into south facing openings, especially if there's some sort of eave over the south face.
An open south wall provides sunshine and warmth in winter, and is shaded in the summer.
All good architecture, especially in the finest houses, revolved around these principles prior to central heat and air.
If I recall from earlier in this thread, the structure is roughly four feet by eight feet. I haven't studied it, but my first impulse is to turn one four foot side south, and make that side entirely hardware cloth. Put perches along it, my chickens love to perch on the south side for the sunshine, and to just enjoy seeing the world.
If you're having a pop door, put it on the south side too, that'll eliminate any draft from the open south wall, out the pop door. Put the roost all in way down one side, I think 30 inches off the ground is good to avoid Bumblefoot injuries, keep the nesting box lower at say 18 inches off the ground, leaving room to graze beneath, have the door on the north end.
You could even run 18 inches of wire, down each side, just above the bottom sill on the east and west walls. The wire would be open most of the year, maybe closed in during the winter.
I think I just described a half scale model of my tractor. Look at the pictures and see if that appeals to you, or perhaps even a portion of it.
You're very smart to explore all your options in advance, leveraging not just other's wisdom, but even more important, their mistakes, that's such a time saver.
There's a lot of satisfaction in squeezing the most out of a project, there's grace and beauty in an elegant solution to a problem!
We hit -22°F a couple of weeks ago. The birds do fluff up in those temps. I've posted this elsewhere but will add it here. +10°F and the girls aren't even fluffed up. The people door into the coop is open as is the metal PulletShut auto door. This old drafty barn isn't going to hold any heat.
