Help, Moisture in coop!!!

[wamtazlady]

Gotta agree with aart. You appear to have no real ventilation. Those 4 little holes don't really count as much.

For example, my coop is 6' by 8'. There are 2 1' by 3' vents under the eaves. Then there is a 2' by 2' vent in the clean out door. The coop is built into the corner of an L shaped house so no wind blows in that vent in the door as it is only a few feet away from the house. There is also the pop door that is open year round. That gives me 11 square feet of ventilation.

 

[Jamity46]

Doesn't look like you have any eave ventilation..and can't add any..
....pics of eaves from outside might tell that tale.
The 4 holes in each of the gable ends are not near enough.
Is there a ridge vent?

So no ridge vent - should I just add and opening at the top of the n and S walls—the east and west walls look same at top except west walls do have windows

East outside wall where it meets roof


North peak-front of coop



South peak

 

[GC-Raptor]

I leave a window open a couple inches in my bought coop that I assembled. Only two 3 inch vents at peaks.
Window opened is lower than roosts. .
No frostbite in several below zero Fahrenheit nights. . . . Stays 7 to 8 degrees warmer in 22.5 square foot coop with 7 pullets. GC
ETA; If you want to leave a window open, cover with 1/2 inch hardware cloth.

 

[aart]

East outside wall where it meets roof

I can't quite tell if there is an opening on this eave?

Louvered vent cover for N & S gables, as big as you can get.

 

[Jamity46]

I can't quite tell if there is an opening on this eave?

Louvered vent cover for N & S gables, as big as you can get.

No none of the eaves really have any openings - should we try to cut openings in the eaves or just add the large louvered vents to N & S gables

 

[aart]

No none of the eaves really have any openings - should we try to cut openings in the eaves or just add the large louvered vents to N & S gables

Hard to know if you can open eaves, I can't see what you've got there....
.....definitely get gable vents in as soon as you can.

 

[RaZ]

You really need to make an opening as high up the eave ends as you can. Warm moist air rises and needs to escape. Do you smell ammonia in the coop? That's not good if you do.
People tend to not think about moisture in the coop during winter when the outside air is so dry. But it will build up due to the chickens respiration and droppings.
You don't want drafts but you do need airflow aka ventilation.

I think you really need to open up the walls as high as you can go. If that isn't possible, can you put a fan in the door way? Turned so that it sucks the "bad" air out of the coop.
Also invest in in a thermometer that reads the humidity level. For a couple of bucks you will know for sure the conditions inside your coop.

Good luck.

 

[Jamity46]

Ok, we will put the vents in 2m-thank you everyone for your help and suggestions!!!

 

[Jamity46]

I don’t smell any ammonia, we can add a couple openings under the eaves too! I have the door open today and coop seems to be dry right now. It’s almost 40 here so i think that is helping! Going to menards now to get supplies for 2m!! Thanks so much!!!

 

[spiritpots]

I use the deep littler method and my coop has always been very dry, but this morning there was moisture on two of the three windows. It was -28 three days ago and is +38 outside now with moist, dense fog everywhere. I closed the windows the other day when the winds were so strong but totally forgot to open them when it started to warm up on Friday. I've left the pop door open except for those couple of severely cold nights and it was dry in the coop in the morning. My coop isn't heated so I added some loose straw a few days ago when it was so very cold. I'm going to remove that now and add a fresh topping of wood chips. Is there something else I can do to help remove the moisture? I do have ventilation at the eaves but apparently not enough for these extreme temperature swings. Everything has been going so well for me but with the temps bouncing all over the place I'm finding keeping the coop environment ideal a little tricky.