Painting the coop

Following up on what Aart said, a dark color will heat things up. In winter I use black rubber bowls set in the sun for water. If the sun is shining water stays thawed even in the mid teens Fahrenheit. In summer I use white bowls in the shade to keep water cooler.

When we got a new roof we went from dark shingles to a light reflective metal. It costs less to keep the house cool in summer, more to heat the house in winter.

Color does matter. If your paint makes it darker it will be warmer. If your paint makes it lighter it will be cooler. Not because paint traps heat on wood but because darker colors absorb heat and light colors reflect it.
 
again my husband says no paint in the coop cause they'll scratch it off and eat it.

Some birds are just weird, so yours may end up surprising you. Some of my chickens do pick off and eat paint, but we only have paint on the outside of the coop, so now the bottom few feet of the coop is wrapped in stiff bird netting to deter the picking. :rolleyes:
 
Following up on what Aart said, a dark color will heat things up. In winter I use black rubber bowls set in the sun for water. If the sun is shining water stays thawed even in the mid teens Fahrenheit. In summer I use white bowls in the shade to keep water cooler.

When we got a new roof we went from dark shingles to a light reflective metal. It costs less to keep the house cool in summer, more to heat the house in winter.

Color does matter. If your paint makes it darker it will be warmer. If your paint makes it lighter it will be cooler. Not because paint traps heat on wood but because darker colors absorb heat and light colors reflect it.
20210804_104705.jpg

That's the picnic bench for color reference, it's lighter than the wood. We used leftover roofing wood for it that has that silver heat resistant lining that faces down and then will run tar paper over the top and coat it with white elastomeric roof coating. We don't get too cold here, most of the winter it doesn't usually drop below 40 and winter day's is low 60's. Over the last 5 years there's 1 or 2 nights it'll randomly drop to the 30's in January enough to see snow/slush but nothing that ever sticks and not long enough to freeze water.
20210804_110726.jpg

All 4 walls have ventilation for summer, I plan to cover the 2 largest triangular one's and leave the 2 long strips open through winter and monitor the temperature in there at night. My mother-in-law gave us some old comforters that I may tack up inside as insulation if necessary. This is my first time having chickens so I just have to wait and see.
 
View attachment 2785562
That's the picnic bench for color reference, it's lighter than the wood. We used leftover roofing wood for it that has that silver heat resistant lining that faces down and then will run tar paper over the top and coat it with white elastomeric roof coating. We don't get too cold here, most of the winter it doesn't usually drop below 40 and winter day's is low 60's. Over the last 5 years there's 1 or 2 nights it'll randomly drop to the 30's in January enough to see snow/slush but nothing that ever sticks and not long enough to freeze water.View attachment 2785603
All 4 walls have ventilation for summer, I plan to cover the 2 largest triangular one's and leave the 2 long strips open through winter and monitor the temperature in there at night. My mother-in-law gave us some old comforters that I may tack up inside as insulation if necessary. This is my first time having chickens so I just have to wait and see.

No need to either insulate or cover the triangles for that kind of a winter -- as long as the rain doesn't blow in.

Insulation just attracts rodents by offering them a cozy home.

My winters are just a little colder than yours and my chickens have been healthy and happy in the Little Monitor Coop: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-little-monitor-coop.76275/

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The canopy overtop is for shade, not rain protection. :)
 
No need to either insulate or cover the triangles for that kind of a winter -- as long as the rain doesn't blow in.

Insulation just attracts rodents by offering them a cozy home.

My winters are just a little colder than yours and my chickens have been healthy and happy in the Little Monitor Coop: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-little-monitor-coop.76275/

View attachment 2785672

The canopy overtop is for shade, not rain protection. :)

^^^^This^^^^

In your climate that he only worry is keeping things dry. They have down coats so I hose temps will be easy to acclimate to.

We get below zero here and I only close my windows never my vents. Dry birds are far better off than ones trapped inside with all the moisture from breathing and poo.

Last winter our lows were -16F and there were only 2 birds out of 19 chickens and 7 ducks that even had a tiny touch of frostbite.
 
No need to either insulate or cover the triangles for that kind of a winter -- as long as the rain doesn't blow in.

Insulation just attracts rodents by offering them a cozy home.

My winters are just a little colder than yours and my chickens have been healthy and happy in the Little Monitor Coop: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-little-monitor-coop.76275/

View attachment 2785672

The canopy overtop is for shade, not rain protection. :)
I wasn't really sure how much I was going to need to do for winter. I was thinking of making triangles about the size of the opening with brackets like the back of a picture frame but if temperature isn't an issue than I'll just save it for rain cover. There's 1 ft of overhang but the storms we've had recently I know would blow it right in. The baby coop I'd draped a towel over vents the rain would blow in but I don't like it too much since big gusts of wind blow it up over the top sometimes, I need something that will stay put.
 
I wasn't really sure how much I was going to need to do for winter. I was thinking of making triangles about the size of the opening with brackets like the back of a picture frame but if temperature isn't an issue than I'll just save it for rain cover. There's 1 ft of overhang but the storms we've had recently I know would blow it right in. The baby coop I'd draped a towel over vents the rain would blow in but I don't like it too much since big gusts of wind blow it up over the top sometimes, I need something that will stay put.

Wow. You must get some serious winds to blow rain in with a foot of overhang.

Where, in general, are you located? (You can put it in your profile so people can give more targeted advice).
 
Wow. You must get some serious winds to blow rain in with a foot of overhang.

Where, in general, are you located? (You can put it in your profile so people can give more targeted advice).
Southern AZ, monsoons have some wild winds but about 2 weeks ago we had a tornado warning. Was a first for me but no tornado thankfully, the wind ripped the latch off my back gate and split the 4×4 it was mounted to, made a mess of the yard but no other damage. Several of the other storms I'd be standing under the car port about 15ish feet back from the eave and the rain was splashing my face. We're on the edge of town, out my front door is open desert so we get the brunt of the wind when storms come through. We had no rain last year so I think this year is trying to make up for it.
 
Southern AZ, monsoons have some wild winds but about 2 weeks ago we had a tornado warning. Was a first for me but no tornado thankfully, the wind ripped the latch off my back gate and split the 4×4 it was mounted to, made a mess of the yard but no other damage. Several of the other storms I'd be standing under the car port about 15ish feet back from the eave and the rain was splashing my face. We're on the edge of town, out my front door is open desert so we get the brunt of the wind when storms come through. We had no rain last year so I think this year is trying to make up for it.

:eek:

That is some incredible wind!

People on the Arizona state thread should be able to help with their knowledge of the local conditions. :)

Keeping your birds cool in the summer will be the big priority.
 
Yeah I'm on the AZ thread also, lot's of help from them already. I saved some of the large tupperware the family size lunch meat came in and freeze blocks of ice to drop in their water bowl, one of the ladies in the AZ thread uses a plastic ice cream bucket but I don't have one of those. I have a bunch of frozen baby food the baby won't eat anymore so they get those as treats now. My Cornish cross is the only one having a hard time with the heat so he gets special treatment going inside for cool off time. In the future I'll be avoiding that breed in summer, told my husband if we ever get meat birds it has to be in the fall so their grown by spring cause we'd be losing them to this heat and I'd feel bad for putting more of them through it when they are clearly meant for cooler climate, if we had known we wouldn't have gotten him.
 

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