MN winters and our coop

[Rhyara]

Hey folks. Happy nearly-Thanksgiving to y'all! My wife and I are so appreciative of this forum and all you chicken lovers!

We had our first 10 degree f morning today and I wanted to reach out for advice on our coop setup as pertains to ventilation and heat. We've done a lot of reading on the topic and I think one of the through lines is "it depends on how your coop is built".

We built our coop this spring/summer and have walls consisting of .5in plywood exterior, 1.5in foam core insulation and a tough plastic interior. The floor and roof are both insulated with the same 1.5in foam core and covered by the same plastic, with a 1in air gap in some places because of the depth of the joists.

For ventilation we have a hooded gap on the front and back of the coop. The back (lowest point) has a 2" gap along the whole length of the coop (8ft). The top is roughly .75" across the length. I'm confident that drafts on doors and windows are all completely snuffed.

I'm thinking that our ventilation is currently completely defeating our insulation as the temps inside the coop are within 1-2 degrees of our ambient temp.

Just today I have decided to try stuffing blankets into the vent gaps, leaving about 1.5ft out of the 8ft length open for ventilation.

From reading up on the topic of moisture, having a high point well above the highest roost is a good way to prevent frost bite on comb and wattle. That distance is about 21 inches from roost to vent gap.

My hope is that body heat and deep litter can take care of the heat levels in the coop, but if y'all had this setup what would you do to ensure a good temperature and moisture balance?

Picture of interior and our curious rooster

 

[DickMidnight]

id get rid of all the blankets. you’re defeating the purpose of ventilation by blocking it all up.

you want the inside temperature of the coop to be almost exactly the same as the ambient temperature outside. that means you have good airflow taking hot heavy air out of your coop.

i think you’re under-ventilated as a whole. id look into opening some holes in that wall that is covered by the corrugated plastic roofing.

with 10 birds, you need at least 10 square feet of permanently open ventilation. you currently have about 2-3 square feet if i’m reading your post correctly.

your thoughts on the ventilation/temperature issue are intuitive, but they’re backwards. you’re building the coop to be warm, where you need to build it to be well ventilated and let the birds keep themselves warm.

 

[Rhyara]

Thanks for the reply. We've pulled that board off entirely as there isn't a draft to be concerned about, and this is inside a fully enclosed under deck space. We'll have some time this weekend to work some more on this.

 

[DickMidnight]

Thanks for the reply. We've pulled that board off entirely as there isn't a draft to be concerned about, and this is inside a fully enclosed under deck space. We'll have some time this weekend to work some more on this.

View attachment 3330646

what are the dimensions on that?

id consider covering it with hardware cloth just to be safe

 

[Raptor Chicken]

We'd need more pictures of both the inside and outside where your ventilation is to get a better idea of where your at. I can't tell much by what you've posted but it looks under ventilated. How big is your coop?

This is what a properly ventilated coop should look like. My coop is 6x6' and houses 6 birds. We've got natural 8"x2' openings from the way the roof is built but I went further and added 4"x2' openings on the front and back walls. In addition theres an opening over the door to the coop.

 

[WI chickens]

As others have said, you are going to need quite a bit more ventilation. Your winters are like mine and I can tell you from my own mistakes, you are going to have heavy frostbite and respiratory issues with your birds if you don't get a lot more fresh air in.

 

[Rhyara]

Thanks, everyone. This is definitely a learning experience. We'll make sure this is addressed and post more pictures on progress. Right now even with that board removed it's pretty tight for flow. We'll be removing the ceiling cover and open it up for better air flow

 

[Rhyara]

With the ceiling bare it looks like this:
View attachment 3334291

Top gap:

Bottom gap:

We're debating about putting in a ventilation fan above their door (as it's a high unoccupied space we can easily get to) but a bit concerned the fan blowing out will create a draft by sucking the replacement air in.
Also worried it might just take from the vent right above and not do a good job replacing all the air inside?

We're looking at these models as possibilities:
https://a.co/d/6UZWuaz

https://a.co/d/fz8QPTZ

 

[DickMidnight]

it looks like your coop is pretty sheltered in general. what is the big roof that it’s under?

i think you can do away with the plastic sheeting over the pop door and the opening on the wall.

fresh air coming in through the pop door and exiting out through the ventilation at the roof line is what you want.

exhaust fans are unnecessary.

 

[Rhyara]

Forgot to add, the front gap is about 4.5 inchesx8ft (minus the 2x4 supports)

It's some plastic roofing to mostly rain-proof the underside of our deck where most of their run is, we have more space for them in the yard via a tunnel under the deck stairs. Their run/additional enclosure is completely covered and skirted with 1/4in hardware cloth so opening up the inside more is fine. I'm hesitant to do anything to the outer wall.

We were trying to keep draft to a minimum with the extra plastic and the little vinyl doggy door, but maybe it's not necessary with the run wrapped (minus 1ft around the top).