How many vents should I have in my 8' by 12' chicken coop?

[jsmithmuxlow]

I'm in the process of building my chicken coop and I have searched for how many vents but have just found "if it smells strong you need more" answer. I was just wondering if any one could share their insight-my coop is 8' by 12' and will house 12 large breed chickens (perhaps more in the future) what is the proper amount I should install? I would perfer to stick to just basic roof vents but my husband wants to build a copula to vent it out. Oh and there is only one small window on the back wall so I know I will need to put some vents in but how many?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm not sure where you live, which could have an influence on the answer. You may have two different issues or you may not.

If you live where it is hot, you will need to vent the heat out during summer. The basic answer to that one is, as much as you can get.

If you live where it gets cold, you need to vent out the moisture and ammonia, but keep drafts off the chickens at night when they are roosting. Unless you have really cold weather, like below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, your biggest enemy is moisture, not the cold. The danger is frostbite. Most chicken breeds can easily handle temperatures below zero if they are kept out of drafts and the humidity is low, but they can get frostbite in the upper 20's F if the humidity is too high. Most frostbite problems are caused by people not ventilating enough, not because of the cold.

Not knowing your specific conditions, what I suggest you consider is that you leave openings all around the top of your walls under the overhang to protect from rain blowing in. If you put your roosts below these openings, the chickens wil be protected from drafts, yet you get plenty of ventilation. If you are where it is cold or wind can be a problem, you might want a flap or something that can be closed to protect that side, say on the side of the prevailing wind or maybe the north side since that is often the cold wind.

I don't know how your coop is framed, but on the two sides where the rafters are, I took the siding up to the bottom of the rafters and used hardware cloth to fill in between the rafters to keep predators from climbing in. A lot of people use washers and screws to hold the hardware cloth in place, but I use lathing. Put strips of wood about 1/2" thick over the edge of the hardware cloth, predrill the holes so you don't split the wood, and put a few screws in, with the screws going through an opening in the hardware cloth. That hardware cloth is not going anywhere, it covers up the sharp edges, and it is not that hard to do.

On the other two sides, I left a triangular shaped area above the siding and filled that in with hardware cloth. These are especially the sides you may want to consider a flap, depending in how yours is built. Depending on overhang and how it is built, this may be more exposed to rain blowing in. If you hinge the flap above it and prop that flap open, you may be able to shield this from rain better.

Depending on where you live, you may not need a lot of ventilation down low, but if it is hot, it does not hurt. Your pop door may provide enough for a draft in the summer, and it will be closed at night when the danger of drafts on roosting chickens is greater. One window that you can leave open in the summer may be enough. Remember to cover it with hardware cloth so nothing can climb in. If you live in a place where it really gets hot in the summer, you can cut an opening fairly low on the downwind side, cover that with hardware cloth, and provide a flap you can close in winter.

Some people that live in a place it stays relatively warm all year round, say the US. Gulf Coast, make one entire wall of wire.

I'll give you a link to an article that I think is really good. I'll actually give you links to three articles. The cold weather one may or may not affect you, but I think these should be required reading for anyone building a coop and run.

Good luck!!!

Pat’s Big Ol' Ventilation Page
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-VENTILATION

Pat’s Cold Coop (winter design) page:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-winter-coop-temperatures

Pat’s Big Ol' Mud Page (fixing muddy runs):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-fix-a-muddy-run

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I would recommend against a cupola, unless you live in the desert (and will also build a flap to close the cupola hole up during cold weather). It will tend to let rain in, and will not be usable in cold weather unless your coop were much bigger or had many fewer chickens in it. A purely-decorative one is fine, of course.

I would also recommend against roof vents, though (if you mean like attic-type vents). They too let some rain in (yes, really they do) but most of all they are just way insufficient in area. (The effective area is NOT the size of the hole you cut in the roof, it's the size of the slit around the edge of the vent cap where air has to flow thru).

I would recommend big openings, at least some of them being high on the usually-downwind-in-winter walls but for most areas you will also want large window-ish openings. It is WAY better in my opinion to have more ventilation than you need (so you close some of it) than to need more than you have

It is hard to make specific recommendations without knowing where you live (climate, weather) but as a generic recommendation I would say that if you have like 1 sq ft of vent opening per chicken, or at least 1 sq ft of vent opening per 10 sq ft of coop floorspace, something between those two numbers, you will generally be in good shape to deal with anything other than very hot weather. If very hot weather is an issue for you, you'll need more summertime ventilation than that.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[jsmithmuxlow]

I live in the thumb area of Michigan. My chicken coop is one of those pre-fabed sheds that has a gambrel roof. The side walls are only about 4ft tall and I was worried about putting any venting that low because I thought that might be draft issue. Thanks for the input I didn't realize how much the area you live in effects the venting issue. You guys sure gave me some food for thought-Thanks!!!