We are in the process of finishing our coop. We have twelve 6 week old chicks. They have been living in the run for a little over a week, sleeping in a box/cave. It is built up against our house and our kitchen window looks right into the hen house. The footprint is 12' x 12'. The coop is 10' tall in the back where it is up against our house and slopes down to 7'. The hen house is 2' off the ground and is 4' x 12'. Our dilemma is the roof and ventilation. The main part of the hen house is made from 4 x 8 sheets of plywood. There is a lot of open space above that (enclosed by hardware cloth). We don't know what is best to do with that space. Can we leave it open? Will that make it too cold in the winter? Should we have removable panels so it is closed off in winter and open in the hot summer? How much ventilation do we need and where to put it? The outside wall of the hen house will be doors so that we can clean it out. They will have pop out panels to give ventilation in the summer. The run side of the hen house is just the plain wood. Should we make pop out panels there also? We are planning on doing deep litter. We are in Maryland, so not too, too cold in winter, fairly hot in summer. Sorry this is so long. Thanks for reading all this! Thanks for any suggestions!
The coop pretty much faces west, a little northwest. When you say put plywood on top of coop, do you mean cover up that open triangle shaped space or essentially make a temp winter roof that would be straight across the hen house?
