Need help on vents for my new coop

[jessieluv22]

Our walls are up and now I need to decide where to put the vents. I was thinking of putting them underneath the soffits which would definitely keep the rain out by not sure if that is sufficient. Would the air just pocket in the soffit with vents on the bottom? I wrote on a couple pics so hopefully you can see what I mean.

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[jessieluv22]

Here is a side view and a drawing

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[21hens-incharge]

Here is a side view and a drawing

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I do believe if you do the vents like the drawing the air will flow nicely. If you did only one side I think it may not flow as needed.

 

[campbellchicks]

Talking to others, they said soffit vents are great and don't need to be unlocked in winter if that is a concern due to wind not blowing directly in. At least on mine it can't as I have a peaked roof.

 

[21hens-incharge]

My roof is peaked as well and I have soffit vents. Mine are rather large and during the really cold days the wind did blow in. I had to close most of mine off on one side to keep the snow from whipping in with the wind. The side with soffit vents in mine is above the run. I had to close it off from the inside of the coop with plastic sheeting.

 

[Bradfordj]

Soffit vent work good, since heat rises it gives a good place for heat to escape!

 

[campbellchicks]

My roof is peaked as well and I have soffit vents. Mine are rather large and during the really cold days the wind did blow in. I had to close most of mine off on one side to keep the snow from whipping in with the wind. The side with soffit vents in mine is above the run. I had to close it off from the inside of the coop with plastic sheeting.

I'll have to keep an eye out. Mine is slightly more pitched. Wander if that'll help. Hmmmm

 

[jessieluv22]

Thanks everyone for your input. We are thinking about putting a smaller closable vent on the lower side and a few larger vents on the higher side. Now the decision is how big? The coop is 24 square feet so the guidelines I have read is a minimum of 2.4 square feet of venting. But I have also read one square foot of venting per chicken? We free range so will probably house about 12 chickens mainly for roosting....argh so many decisions!

 

[21hens-incharge]

My thoughts are to make more vents than you think you will need and make them so you can close them if needed. Better to much than not enough. I have the entire 14 foot length of my coop soffet open (with hardware cloth to keep nasty things out). It overhangs about 15 inches so I have 14 linear foot x 15 inches wide available as well as 11 windows with the smallest ones being 2'x2'. This proved to be to much with the soffit open in the winter but certainly will help in the summer. I am working on a way to close sections of the soffit when needed for this next winter.

Now with that said the only time I found it to be an issue is when we had a really bad snow storm with high wind out of the north. The open soffit side is on the west but not protected from whipping wind.