How to Ventilate our coop for Winter?

[Abby11182]

We are just getting started on our coop, as we have chicks arriving on Monday. Our coop is a side-room of a large workshop outbuilding.

This is the room from the door (sorry the photos are pretty huge, don't know how to resize them)


Here is the window that you see on the right in the above photo


It's propped up with a board to let in some air while we work on the coop, and I'd like to use this window in some way to ventilate it during the winter (we are in MN so it can get WAY below zero in the winter), but I'm worried about the draft. Replacing with a different window isn't an option at this point. If I just leave it open a crack would that be enough ventilation without too much draft? Would it be better to close it tight and drill some holes through the interior wall into the main room of the building? Please help me, I know it's a long way till winter, but we're in planning mode now. Thanks in advance!

 

[mnferalkitty]

I am in MN to. There is potential for injured chickens if you use that board to keep the window up I can guarantee they will roost on the sill and knock the board out and they are going to roost on the window itself because it looks like a comfy shelf they will poop on it ALOT. Put a large eye hook and use wire to wire up the window or better yet put the shutter on outside of coop. In winter I leave a window cracked open if it gets crazy cold I shut it. The window I crack is not by the roosting ladder where they sleep

 

[aggiemae]

You could probably leave that window opened during the day and most nights all winter but you will need to figure out a safer way to do it.

Like people, chickens produce lots of humidity when they breath, the ventilation is needed to keep the the air in the coop dry (or at least as dry as the air outside). One square foot of ventilation per chicken is ideal even in cold weather. If it's crazy freezing and you are worried you can always add a heat lamp but I think you will find that you will get to know your chickens pretty well and be able to figure out if they are too cold (or too hot) before you know it.

As for drafts, the room looks the be well sealed so it's probably not drafty and a window high up like that will not create a draft. How will the chickens get in and out of the coop? Are you going to add a door?

 

[Abby11182]

I like the eye-hook idea for keeping the window open, I realize that the board propping will need to be replaced. You don't feel that wind blowing through the window in the winter will create a hazardous draft for the chickens? That would be great news! Should we also put hardware cloth over the screen outside to keep predators from breaking in through the screen?

The room has a solid door that closes, and then there's another door for the main building. We want to put a closable chicken door on the coop door and I'm looking at chicken-tunnel ideas to help us get them to the run outside the building. We are chicken newbies so we want to avoid cutting a door directly into the exterior wall until we know that chicken-keeping will work out.