I want my girls to be healthy and warm in their coop during the winter and I was wondering how do I know they will?
Look up at the roof of our houses. There will be one of three kinds of vents. Triangle vents in the gable end. Roof "cap" vents, that look like mushroom caps positioned high up on your roof, often only on the back roof so as not to show from the front. Finally, a ridge vent. The ridge vent is right on top of the ridge and runs along the ridge providing a vent at the longest, highest part of the roof. Those vents are in your roof to let humid air escape. Wide open. Even in the winter. In the summer they let hot humid air escape. In the winter, they allow humid air to escape so that your attic insulation stays dry. Vents on a chicken coop serve precisely the same purpose for the same reasons. Ventilation is not just air coming in through a window or such, it is a VENT, which allows humid air to escape, and work well only when they are positioned high up on the coop or through the coop's roof. A well vented coop stays dry and a dry coop makes for happy chickens.
Hi there- Hoping someone with silkies will have good advice for these questions. We have 12 silkie chicks. 5 are outside now the rest are indoors still. We have built a 8x6 run for them and now we are working on the house/coop. It will be 8x4x6. We are using plywood that is 1/2 i believe. This seems to be thin? Will the silkies be cold with wood that thin? Also any advice on ventilation? Will one window on the side be enough? I just don't want it to get drafty. It seems from the answer above we should try to put in a vent at the top?
I just finished my Silkie coop last week, made out of pallets, 42 in x 52 in, I have 2 Silkies. After putting the walls up, I covered the outside with 4 mil plastic, then covered that with 3/4 plywood. The space between the pallets, I filled with hay. I sat in there on a windy day, and felt no draft. The front door faces North, the window faces East (see the pict.) The back door faces South, and the solid wall faces West, there is where I will put a small nest box for when Nonnie starts to lay. If you look toward the back, above the door (which I still have to hinge) there is a 2 - 3 inch gap, that is my venting, it is covered in hardware cloth. Just finished fencing their run today, so my big hens will stop breaking in & stealing the Silkies food! I heard some people talking about some type of inexpensive board, that has a slick white side to it, they said it was easy to wipe down. If you got the foam board insulation, and the covered it with white board, that would give your Silkies some buffer to any wind or cold temps you may get. I also deep littered their coop.
Sorry I live in San Diego. So the very lowest it gets here at night is 30 degrees. Sometimes we get tons of rain, sometimes none. Mommy to wee ones, when you say you used 4 mil plastic is that just a really thick plastic?? Do the chickens ever peck at that? Now did you just staple that onto the framing, than covered with plywood. Also what is the inexpensive foam white board, is it insulation?
