Regarding your question about insulating. I expect a lot of flack from this but IMO you don't need it. That's a nice shed, much nicer than the one I had my last coop in. Chickens don't need an insulated coop unless you're a lot colder than I think you are. I raised chickens in a portion of one of those "greenhouse" buildings built with 2x4 framing and sided and roofed with fiberglass translucent panels. Our weather was mostly about zero for low's in winter but occasionally colder. Wind, lots of it and show 1-4 feet depending on the winter. My chickens survived fine and layed eggs thru the winter. I had lights and water kept from freezing with heat tape and a small birdbath heater in the bucket. Now to describe my coop: It was in a corner of a 15'x30' "greenhouse" described above. The coop part (about 7 1/2' x 10' I paneled the outside 2 walls up about 4' with plywood. I did "insulate" behind the plywood with fiberglass insluation. The upper 4' of the outside walls I merely lined inside with feedsacks, no paneling. The other two walls were chickenwire only as they faced inside the building. On one of those walls I normally had hay stacked in the winter until it was used up. The other wall was always open to the building and the remainder of the building was never insulated. I did eventually replace the roof with metal panels. On the ceiling of the coop I layed used metal panels and cardboard on top of the ceiling joists to keep the chickens from roosting on them and to keep drafts off the chickens. There was a lot of air movement thru the spaces between the ceiling joists and the roof that provided ventilation. The "ceiling" over the chickens mostly kept the drafts away but allowed the "chicken" air to escape. Of course in the summer we had screened windows we opened to provide additional ventilation. Regards, Woody
