Iced up windows in coop

henney penny

Songster
10 Years
Nov 21, 2009
1,733
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221
Northern Maine
I am allready thinking of winter,I have condensation in my coop have put more vents in for this comming winter.I am putting in a new door with a lot of little window panes in it,is there anything I can put on the glass to keep it from iceing up in the wnter?It will be on the south side so the sun can heat the coop up,but I know as soon as the sun goes down the ice will be on the windows.
 
To some degree, condensation/frost on windows indicates insufficient ventilation. Since most peoples' coops are underventilated, I would suggest that's the first thing to take a good HARD look at.

That said, though, once you get past a certain amount of temperature difference between indoors and outdoors, you will get condensation on windowpanes even with very acceptably-low humidity, just because the glass gets so cold. Unless you have large expanses of affected area, this is not generally a problem. However, you can minimize it (in non-extreme conditions) by taping or staplegunning bubblewrap over the windows. It doesn't block *much* light, and reduces condensation/frost considerably.

This is only to be done AFTER you have already got a "ridiculously large" amount of ventilation though
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Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 
Pat always gives great ventilation advice. I thought my DH was going to divorce me when she insisted that we drill more holes into his newly minted chicken coop. But we did, and she was right -- problem solved. It seems counter-productive to put holes in the coop when the goal is to keep it warm in the winter, but trust me, it works.

My coop interior averages 10-15F in the wintertime. No frost whatsoever on the windows. Assume 1 sq/ft ventilation per chicken. Keep your vents high overhead and put them on the opposite side you get snow/rain. Make a way to close them up (temporarily) if the temperatures get too bad. I don't close mine up until it's well below 0F.
 
I`m thinking ahead,its still in the 80`s here.My coop is new this is the second summer for it,and dh gets mad when I tell him we need more ventilation because I made him insulate it and he says what was the sense in putting the extra expense of insulation if your going to let the heat go out the vents,having a hard time trying to get him to understand that the chikens will be healtyer if the condensation is kepy down,they can stad the cold its a draft they don`t like.So all my vents are up next to the ceiling.What i would like to do is go around the coop with a drill and put holes in and did mention that but dh said you can`t do that now because of the insulation,it would get caught in the drill bit.The big one is the new one,I have two big vents in the back one big one on one side and one small one in the front over the door,hope that will be enough for this win
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ter.
 
Try installing some old floor vent covers high up on the wall. Maybe find some on Craigslist or something. Maybe somebody has an old mobile home that isn't livable that you could talk them out of the fent covers. You'd get your ventilation, nothing would get in besides fresh air and you can direct where the air comes in like open the vents so the air points up so no draft hits the birds. There are those vent covers that directs the air in a particular direction that you attach to the vent cover. OUr coop has a opening at the top on 2 sides oposite of each other. We never covered them so a snake could actually get in. But they could in other places too but we've never had a problem in the winter. Our coop is open air n the summer and we board up the 2 sides in the winter and put in a couple old mobile home windows for light. On warmer days we open the windows a little for more fresh air. They did fine even during the ice storm. A tree had leaned over the coop from the weight of the ice and had the door frozen shut under the limb. We where afraid our chickend where frozen too. The light we used was out because the cord had gotten pulled out and also the electricity was out for a week. We just kept them inside and the door shut as much as possible so they held their warmth. Not one even got the tiniest frost bite.

Our winters here are from one drastic end to another. We can have a bad storm one day and the next it's melted and we're wearing long sleeve shirts outside. Or it can be cold for days or a few weeks then it's warm again. The ice storm cold lasted for a week for us. When it started to warm up and we where worried the food in the fridge would ruin the electric was fixed and on again. All we lost was a gallon of milk and it had expired. WE where actually very lucky other than having to live in the frigid cold and try to sleep wearing all of our cloths and under all our blankets. I kept my Chihuahua under my cloths so she wouldn't freeze other than for her to potty and eat.

Anyway, I got off subject. They are pretty hardy. My phoenix did fine last year when it got frigid. We put them in a smaller pen and covered it completely with wood. Even the floor and put heat lamps inside and they did fine.
 
Thats funny that you mentioned heat vents thats what we used.When you say fridgid I bet its not what I`m thinking off.It gets 25 to 30 below 0 some nights with the wind howling.On nights like that I close up the vents and put a heat lamp in to keep it at least 20 in there.with so many birds it keeps it around 15 to 20 on really cold nights.We have had a few frost bites on combs but not bad.My little coop has my silkies in it so have to keep heat lamp on all the time and that sure runs the light bill up.
 

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