Open air concept coop for winter - any thoughts?

[Mrs. K]

I think a lot of people think WARM, and instead they should think DRY. Dry chickens out of the prevailing wind, are warm chickens. In an effort to keep chickens WARM, people close up the coop with the noble idea of trapping their body heat, and keeping them warm.

What actually happens, is they trap the vapor. The Vapor rises in the warm air, and hits the colder ceiling and walls, and rains back down on the chickens, making them damp and cold. Think of being in a car without heat, making out like teenagers, and soon, the windows are fogged, and the air is damped.

Good ventilation is very vital to chickens health. It keeps them dry. My son in law, built me a nice coop, and he put sashes so I could close the ventilation if it got cold, but I took them off. Think DRY now warm!

Mrs K

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

My 40x40 pole shed has a east facing doorway that never closes. Most storms blow out of the northwest. On occasional we get the back end of storms and snow blows into the open doorway. As long as your birds can get out of the draft of it they will be fine.

My larger combed roosters do get frostbite on their combs and occasionally a bird will get frostbitten toes. I'm a bit further north than you and we get colder temperatures so you may not experience as much frostbite.

I personally wouldn't use an open coop in Wisconsin as it would be full of snow pretty quickly, but an open doorway is something different.

I will say my bantam that are in a separate insulated coop which is closed up during cold days, don't get frostbite at all, so open doors at least here does encourage frostbite.