Insulating a bachelor pad

[Chicks Creek]

Hi poultry pals!

I've decided to keep our 5 hatched roos in a bachelor flock on my property away from our laying hens. I love them sm I hope they don't make me regret this.

Anyway as the title suggests I'm trying to think of ways to a make a coop for them that will hold up to WNY winters but not be stifling in summer. It's actually kind of hit or miss on how mild the weather is but I want it to be ready for anything. I'm thinking a simple A-frame, 6×6 which gives each roo more than 5ft² of coop space. The run will be very large as we have lots of space!

I was debating using corrugated PVC roof panels as the side panels, doing deep litter on the ground and plywood as the front and back with a front door. Are the roof panels enough to insulate it?

We also have left over insulation boards from a previous project, should/could we insulate the inside and do the corrugated PVC roof outside? I didn't know if the chickens would peck at the insulation.

Any and all suggestions appreciated

 

[Ridgerunner]

Chickens can and often do peck at insulation so if you install it where they can get to it you probably need to cover it.

Until you get to around -20 Fahrenheit you don't need to worry about insulation as long as they have great ventilation. Your biggest danger when it is below freezing is frostbite, especially of the comb and wattles. The more moisture you have in the coop the higher the risk of frostbite. Moisture can come from their breathing, their unfrozen poop, or any open water. Good ventilation removes that moisture. I've seen chickens sleep in trees in temperatures around -10 Fahrenheit, can't get better ventilation that sleeping in trees.

The other side of this is that you do not want a breeze hitting them when it is cold. A cold breeze can ruffle their feathers and remove the benefit if the insulation they get from their feathers and down. Nature designed them to manage a lot of this for themselves before we domesticated them and started keeping them in restricted areas. It is generally when we restrict them (like keeping them in coops) that they run into problems from this.

Will your coop be on the ground or elevated? If it is on the ground, the ground will act as a thermal mass and release heat into the coop, keeping it a bit warmer during your cold snaps. An elevated coop is still probably OK, just not my preference for cold weather.

 

[StinkyAcres]

A-frames aren't easy to ventilate properly. Unless it's a very tall A-frame the vents will be at the height of the chickens when they are roosting which is not what you want in a cold climate.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Also, if your a-frame sits on the ground, you don’t have as much usable space as LxW would indicate.

So 6’x6’ technically is 36 sq ft, but really, 1’ or more on either side is not usable, because the slant is too low to the ground. A 6x6 a-frame sitting directly on the ground might yield 24 sq ft (max) of usable space. This is different, of course, if the a-frame sits up off the ground.