One Large vs Three Small / Feedback Appreciated

[Diavolicchio]

Quote:
Ed:

I've read the original 1911 version of Woods' book and I'm sold this is the direction to go. I should have my copy of the reprint of the 1924 edition on Tuesday. I sat down with my site map for my property and discovered that the area I've set aside for the chicken coop is such that I'd have to have the structure facing East, rather than SSE as he says is optimal for winter sun. But I figured out a way to stagger the three sections of the coop to give the final structure the benefit of the SSE sun, yet allow for long runs for each of the sections within the wedge-shaped piece of land I've got allocated for chickens. I don't know what kind of problems this slight re-working will cause, but on paper it seems to makes sense. I'm curious to hear your thoughts and whether you see any major red flags.

Here's a link to a drawing of the 1.4 acre area in the SE corner of my land that will be zoned for residential (1.4 acres residential + 15.0 acres open farm land for orchard trees.) I've drawn in the footprint of the modified chicken house and runs (on the left of the site plan.)

Revised Site Plan with Chicken House

You can see the direction the buildings face given the compass orientation in the lower corner. The chickens will go into the wedge of land on the West side where you see the septic and the compost bins drawn. I want to follow Woods' philosophy and make sure the structure faces somewhere between S and SSE. Doing so though will have it facing directly into a fence, rather than facing due East toward the barn and the rest of the buildings. To make this work, I'm therefore going to stagger the placement of the three sections of the chicken house and have the runs extend from each at a right angle. I hope it makes sense from the drawing. Basically the front wall of the first section (8' x 16') will extend 8 feet further out than the front wall of the central section (12' x 16') whose front wall will in turn extend 8 feet further out from front wall of the third section (8' x 16'). Each of the runs will extend from each section at a 90-degree angle, which would be in the direction of the barn on the site plan above.

I think it should work; I'm just not sure what additional problems I'll be causing by doing it this way. I'll end up with a total of 448 sq ft of space for the chickens, and 224 sq ft within the same structure for storage, for a total of 672 sq ft. I'm guessing this should be adequate to comfortably house the 105 mature chickens I'm after, or twice that many young pullets and cockerels.

By the way, I like this particular image from the book. My chicken house would be about 40% larger, with three staggered sections and with seven windows across the top (spaced closer together than his) rather than his four windows. It would still have this same general overall feel though:

I really appreciate you pointing me in the direction of Woods' book. I'm excited about going this route.


John

 

[Diavolicchio]

Ed:

I totally overlooked something with the design modifications I was going to do. The slope of the roofs on these chicken houses is such that the back wall is somewhere between 6 and 8 feet high, even less if you extend the length of the back of the structure to accommodate a storage area, as I had planned on doing. I wasn't thinking three-dimensionally.

I guess I'm going to have to stick with Woods' original design, except have it face due East, instead of the optimal SSE, and simply add a entry room/storage room off one end of the structure. Going this route, the three runs would extend directly off the front of the chicken house, as Woods' intended for them to do. I'll simply have to accept that the direction the front of the structure will face will be about 75 degrees off from optimal, and I may have to make some kind of minor alteration to either allow in more light and passive solar energy during the coldest months. Possibly the solution is just to have a larger bank of windows across the top.

The final structure I'll be going with will therefore end up being 20' x 28' for the chickens (20' x 8') + (20' x 12') + (20' x 8'), plus an entry room on the North side that extends only 12' from the back of the structure, giving me a 12' x 8' entry/storage room. I'd have 560 sq ft for the chickens, and a 96 sq ft room to accommodate everything else I'd need (feed, supplies, storage, a utility sink, etc.)

Although I'll be starting out with 105 mature chickens (15 each of 7 breeds), I'm glad this structure will be able to comfortably accommodate a few more (140 chickens @ 4 sq ft/chicken.) Once I'm maxed at 140 mature standard chickens (20 roosters and 120 hens who are at full laying capacity), the hens should, in theory, be able to produce an average of 5 to 6 dozen eggs/day.

Do these numbers sound reasonable?


John

 

[Intheswamp]

Howdy John. I kinda figured you'd like that old 1911 book.<grin> Get's the old planning juices stirred up, eh?

I think you can go with the Woods half-monitor (like in the picture) and still give it a S/SSE exposure. Going back to your staggered coop modification slide the coops back side-by-side but turn the runs to the side. Kinda like this....

You could even put in partitions in the runs at the "corners" so that you could have some smaller runs for younger birds or whatever.

I think the staggered coop design would have been somewhat of a headache to build (would for me).

You are right, the back side (and front) of the half-monitor coops are not that tall. I'm considering a simple shed roof for my small coop which will end up giving me a taller front. I may still go with a half-monitor being as my son-in-law is going to help me with it....he comes from a family of building contractors and is presently adding about 700sqft on to his and my daughter's house so I might as well put his skills to use, eh?

He's a good guy and if I give him an inkling of what I want to build he'll be on top of it!

Your numbers sounds ok...IF....there's no problems. I would go with the larger square footage but leave your number of birds down around your original number. Living where you do I believe you will have some days when the birds do not go into the run...snow, freezing, whatever. 4 sq ft per bird in the coop is a minimum for large fowl. Think about 4 sq ft...that's only about the size of a box fan. If the chickens had to stay inside for more than a couple of days you might start having some behavior problems...pecking, fighting, etc.,. patandchickens is up in Canada and has a much higher sq ft per chicken than 4 sq ft and her birds have to spend a good bit of time in the coop...and they do well. Even though the coop is open air, there is still the situation of cabin fever that you might want to consider in regards to population levels. I'm hoping for around 6 sq ft per bird...but I'm only looking at a couple of dozen chickens.

Man, you're gonna have a nice setup!!! Enjoy!
Ed

 

[patandchickens]

As far as the applicability of Woods' design for northern climates, you might want to see my posts in the recent thread "_Fresh Air Poultry Houses_ (book review and commentary" (or anyhow the thread title is something like that)... while I firmly agree with the general principle I think you have to take some of what Woods says in context and I do not believe there is good reason to take his designs as fully-optimal, just better than severely-closed-and-underventilated houses common at that time.

Regarding design and placement on the site -- could you describe exactly why you can't just have three in a row facing south?? I am not getting it from the sketch. Is it because you can only have 30' total length and want an additional storage area? There are solutions to that. \\

The coops will not work so well if you stagger them (although I think you've changed your mind about that) -- two of the three will end up heavily shaded for the second half of the day, and they will also tend to catch and funnel winter storm winds from the E. It would also not be a great idea to have them all facing to the E, for pretty much the same reasons.

You need to take what he says about "air cushion" with a bit of a grain of salt, as a significant portion of the reason his houses are not overly breezy inside is that there are seldom hard blows from the South and when there *are* they're warm not cold winds. (I say this on the basis of having worked with a whole lot of open-sided sheds for horses and other livestock. His "wet finger test" diagram is somewhat ludicrous -- a 10-15' wide, 15-20' deep shed, even if low-fronted, DOES have significant air movement in most of it when the wind is blowing somewhat into it, it's just not a highly directional wind. Note that he mentions somebody in Canada telling him that their chickens were too cold on the roost during storms unless there was a droppings board below the roost -- that would be protecting the chickens' undercarriage from cold breezes up their skirts so to speak)

I would suggest investigating VERY CAREFULLY AND IN DETAIL the likely consequences of any modifications to his designs. Some things are flexible, other things can result in big changes in performance from apparently trivial alterations (his example is the relative length of the high and low roof sections, but there are a nubmer of other things whose details matter a lot too).

JME, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Diavolicchio]

<duplicate post>

 

[Diavolicchio]

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I'll check them out. I wasn't aware of the previous thread. Thanks.

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It just seems a little awkward, both functionally and visually, to have a long narrow wedge of land with high fences along the North and South, and to turn the coop facing South where the runs would quickly dead-end into the fence 20' in front of it. Ed provided a workable solution with the runs turning at a 90-degree angle so they can extend a good 60 to 80 feet each, and I'll go this route if I have to, but I think it still looks a little contrived, like trying to put a square peg in and round hole. I like the idea of shifting the direction the chicken house faces by 60 degrees, bu only if it's still going to allow in a decent amount of sunlight, and still be facing away from the prevailing winds. I think this placement will just fit better into that wedge if the structure can face down the length of it, as well as each of the respective runs. Call it Chicken House Feng Shui. The question is: to what degree would this 60-degree turn affect things?

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I agree completely; the staggered sections idea has been nixed.

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I have to admit, I AM still skeptical to a degree that going with one of these structures is going to protect my chickens from frostbite (and yes, I'm going with breeds that aren't as susceptible.) I can't help but wonder whether there may be screening options worth considering that didn't exist in 1924 that will still allow the structure to breathe as intended, but possibly impede any high winds simply because the screening is a bit finer. For example, go with something like this, instead of something as wide open as chain link fence. It wouldn't insulate the structure at all, but it may reduce the affect high winds on blustery winter day. Also, I'd likely use windows clear across the top of the structure, so there would be more glass allowing in more light than in Woods' original designs. I'd want to make sure such a change wouldn't have any negative effects.

I also like the idea of making each section of the chicken house a little deeper and a little narrower, just so the chickens' roost is that much further back from any direct winds. I'll be following suit with the structure Woods built for himself that's 20' deep, as opposed to the 16' deep structure in some of his drawings. The overall footprint I'll need will be 20' x 28' for the chicken house, and 12' x 8' on one side for entry and storage.

Quote:
We're definitely on the same page here. Woods was the expert. And you appear to be one too. It would be pretty arrogant of me to think I could make ANY modification I wanted without potentially sacrificing effectiveness of the structure. That's why I'm discussing the changes that I would be considering here on BYC.

I'll check out your previous threads.

John

 

[Intheswamp]

Howdy Pat! Thanks for giving some feedback on this...definitely helping me out!

I'm still pondering over my coop design, too, so your feedback is most appreciated...especially since I've been studying over Woods ideas for a while.

John, Pat has a lot more knowledge on this than I do on this. Click on her "wet run" link in her signature line and scroll all the way to the bottom of the article to see what type weather she deals with.

....read the article too.

Now...off to find Pat's review of Fresh-Air Poultry Houses!!!

Best wishes,
Ed

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I don't know how much livestock you've had in the past, but (and I *am* a person who cares about aesthetics, please understand, and wants to have a nice-looking property that I can be proud of and imagine other people admiring) it is usually a bad, bad mistake to let aesthetics dictate how to build your facilities when they conflict with practical issues.

First, is there particularly a reason to keep the back of the chicken houses off the N fenceline? B/c you would give yourself a lot more room in front of the coops if you just moved the structure back to that fenceline. (I suppose if this parcel is being zoned separately there might be setback requirements, is that the problem?)

Second, it is not actually dysfunctional at ALL to have open land behind the chicken houses if that's the way it hsa to be. You could actually make this work to your advantage because it gives you the option (if you've got the budget for more fencing) to have TWO runs off each coop, the rear one being used in summertime (shady) and/or to rest the front one. You would not want to use the run behind the coops in wintertime b/c the popdoor would create a breeze in the coop but the rest of the year that'd be *fine*.

Ed provided a workable solution with the runs turning at a 90-degree angle so they can extend a good 60 to 80 feet each, and I'll go this route if I have to, but I think it still looks a little contrived, like trying to put a square peg in and round hole.

You could save yourself trouble and fence material, and look less weird, if you just ran the interior partition fences at an angle. Sort of like pie wedges, not exactly, does that make sense? Or, don't make the runs all the same size. Or, make the two 'outside' (end) ones wider, going out past the edges of the coop. Or a variety of other options.

ANy of that would be much more functional than having the coops facing E. You really would regret doing that, and there will be no way to change it at *all* once things are built

You *could* face them E and change them into conventional basically-closed coops, but then why go to all the work of building them along Woods' plan, and with a long building running basically N-S they will be rather harder to ventilate and less-sunny (thus, less warm in winter, and less dry) than they could be. A long line running basically E-W is just a much more functionally-desirable configuration.

Quote:
This is just a rotproof version of the screens and curtains that they used in Woods' day. It will have the same other two drawbacks as screens and curtains did back then, namely becoming clogged with frost in the winter and with dust in any warmer part of the year in which they're used. And they will not keep the coop any warmer at all, thus will not do much vs frostbite as compared to the other design sensibly designed/maintained.

You have to kind of make the decision whether you are going to build a coop that will retain heat as much as possible, or one that will make no real attempt to retain heat and just let the chickens experience ambient winter lows. It is not impossible to retrofit from one to the other if you change your mind, but it is not easy to do it *well* because of some fundamental differences in what's desirable in the two different plans... so it does somewhat require a commitment one way or the other in the design stage.


Pat​

 

[Diavolicchio]

Quote:
Pat, I'm committed to making this work as best as it can. I'll plan on orienting the structure to face due South. I've got an area about 50 wide in the wedge, North to South, in which to position the chicken house. I'm a little confused though: you suggest butting the structure up against the fence to give me more area in the front for the runs, and then also suggest considering additional runs behind the coops to use in the wintertime. I couldn't do both. It would have to be one or the other. My thoughts are that I'll be using the space in the front of the chicken house to capacity to accommodate the runs, therefore I'll need to have some kind of aisle behind the structure so there's a way of getting to the composting area to the West of it. I don't have the space to work with within that wedge of land to allow for runs both to the North and to the South of the structure.

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I'd need to see a drawing to understand exactly what you mean here.

Quote:
Point taken. I'll have the structure face South, and go with runs along the lines of what Ed proposed: Revised Layout / Orientation


Quote:
I understand that a finer screening will do nothing to insulate the structure; I'm just curious whether a finer mesh may help inhibit the occasional strong winter winds.

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As I said previously, I'm committed to going the route of one of Woods' structures, so I've decided to forego building a coop that will retain heat. That being said, I DO want to make sure I've got some back-up system in place in case the winds and temps get totally out of hand. There's a point at which winter temperatures and winds could get to be too extreme for the health of the birds. I think I would be foolish to not have some system in place to protect the birds during these rare circumstances, no?

Thanks for all of the feedback and suggestions, Pat.




John

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
All I'm saying is, both options are reasonable. Either put the coops against the fenceline and have lots of room in front of them; or if you are forced to have them in the midline of the plot, you can still make good constructive *use* of the 'bare' space behind them. Either one is quite useful

I'll need to have some kind of aisle behind the structure so there's a way of getting to the land to the West of it.

Sure, but that needn't be wide, unless you are wanting to run trucks or tractors back there and can't cut through the orchard.

You could save yourself trouble and fence material, and look less weird, if you just ran the interior partition fences at an angle. Sort of like pie wedges, not exactly, does that make sense? Or, don't make the runs all the same size. Or, make the two 'outside' (end) ones wider, going out past the edges of the coop. Or a variety of other options.

I'd need to see a drawing to understand exactly what you mean here.​

____________
one option: [ ] ] ] that didn't come out super well b/c ASCII is not great
[ ] ] ] for drawing diagonal lines, but the idea is that you
[___]___]___]...... make the perimeter fencing as large as the area allows,
: . . : then run two internal fencelines diagonally out from the
: . . : two shared coop walls to get 3 equal-area runs.
: . .....:........:
: .../
:......./


(e.t.a. - the above is the best arrangement in terms of flexibility. You do serious predatorproof perimeter fencing, not zigzaggy but a simple 3- or 4-sided figure that best fills the space you have available; then you run flimsier merely-chickenproof internal fencing to divide the runs from each other, at whatever angles produce the size runs you want. The advantage is that if you then decide you want (say) a fourth run, for a partitioned-off part of one of the coops being used as a separate breeding pen, you can just rearrange the internal fencing to suit, which b/c it is only chickenproof not predatorproof is much more inexpensive and easy/rapid to do than in other arrangements)

___________
another option: [ ] ] ] or any of a zillion similar arrangements. point being, the
[ ] ] ] runs don't have to be parallel/identical.
.......[___]___]___]........
: : : :
: : : :
:.............: :...............:
: :
:......:

I understand that a finer screening will do nothing to insulate the structure; I'm just curious whether a finer mesh may help inhibit the occasional strong winter winds.

Yes, that's exactly what they used in Woods' day (canvas, burlap, fine metal screening), it just was made of less high tech materials I would suggest trying the cheaper, old-style versions to start with... if you discover you're using the curtains a lot and want something more durable *then* you can invest in fancier pricier versions, and then you will also know more about exactly what specs you need for the material. For now, landscaping-type burlap or windowscreen or shade cloth would probably be good choices.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat​