Starting a coop build, it is my first build and first chickens so feedback is very welcome

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saysfaa

Free Ranging
6 Years
Jul 1, 2017
3,693
11,895
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Upper Midwest, USA
The plan is 10x14. It will be board and batten pine siding and doors, plywood floor, 4:12 shingled roof on plywood with almost 12" eaves, 2 single pane "barn windows" that open inward from the bottom (hinges at the top of each window) and hook open more than 90 degrees up. It has double doors 3'x7' each on the west end and a single 4'x7' door on the south side near the east end. The 4 or 5 hens will get the east 6 or 7 feet of the building; garden tools and chicken supplies get the west end. Woven wire with a 2" x 4" mesh to divide the chickens from the rest of the building. That makes 10 to a little over 15 square feet per hen. They will go out some but not reliably enough to count that for space per bird. I will be able to bring some entertainment in to them regularly, although that will be a lot easier vary in the summer. Is that enough space for most breeds or should I make sure to pick breeds that are more likely to tolerate confinement?

I'm upper midwest so it gets cold and can get very snowy. Zone 5b (or so). Lowest it normally gets is ten below or so (F.), it doesn't stay there longer than a few days. Weeks straight of teens and mid twenties is common, though. Highs in the summer hit 90's and stayed there for several weeks last summer but it does cool off nicely at night. It is humid. Very little wind as we are sheltered by a steep hill and woods to the windward side and it isn't often windy here anyway.

My winter ventilation plan is to leave the south side door fully open and everything else air tight. If that doesn't work - I can build a wood's open-air style coop inside the main coop. or part of one. I'm not just building the woods' coop as a compromise with my better half. In the summer, open the ridge vent and soffit vents and whatever doors and windows seem to make it most comfortable. It will get morning and evening shade from trees - full sun from about 8 to 3:30.

Predator protection: I expect raccoons will be the most likely threat but everything from least weasels to bald eagles and black bears is possible. Metal lath (like for stucco, it is 27" x 8' with 1/4x1/2 diamond-shaped mesh) on the ground for the apron around the outside. And to screen the bottom 50" of the south door. And the west door if I can figure out how to make it movable enough. Maybe put a frame around it and slide it open inside the framing. The rest of the openings (eaves, windows, upper part of doors) : 19 gauge hardware cloth with 1/2 x 1/2 mesh.

I'm still working on roosts and nests.
Nipple waterer on a bucket or on a pvc pipe from a bucket.
This for a feeder: https://www.abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets/diy-rodent-free-chook-feeder/12322946 for dry feed. I'm working on feeding fermented rations. And how to give them oyster shell and grit. Is there any reason a "sandbox" of sand and stones wouldn't provide grit as well as dusting and entertainment?
Bedding: Sweet PDZ under pine shavings and fall leaves from the trees. Maybe some chopped straw (from my own rye field - is there any reason not to use that?)

Shed on graph paper.jpg
 
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My winter ventilation plan is to leave the south side door fully open and everything else air tight. If that doesn't work - I can build a wood's open-air style coop inside the main coop. or part of one. I'm not just building the woods' coop as a compromise with my better half. In the summer, open the ridge vent and soffit vents and whatever doors and windows seem make it most comfortable.

It sounds nice and roomy and secure against predators, but I'm afraid that your ventilation plan needs some work.

You need 1 square foot of permanent, 24/7/365 ventilation per adult, standard-size chicken. Any ventilation that's closed in the winter doesn't count.

Additionally, that winter ventilation should be over your birds' heads while they're sitting on the roost so closing off the soffit and ridge ventilation for winter is exactly backwards.

This is from a cow barn article, but it's the same principle:

natural-ventilation.png


Is there a particular reason you planned to close the ridge and soffit vents for winter?
 
Thank you very much for the observations.

Yes, there is a reason for closing the ridge and soffit vents. This thread explains why pretty well.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...uction-help-appreciated.827891/#post-12079224

I got the idea from this
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/woods-style-house-in-the-winter.445004/#post-5566206 which led me to the book with the following quote

“Where cold, driving storms prevail, if the house is made tight as to roof, rear, and side walls, if the open front is covered with ¼-inch mesh galvanized wire netting, and if the house is made sufficiently deep in proportion to the expanse of the open front, storms will not drive in to any troublesome extent; there will be no danger of frosted combs under all ordinary conditions, and at all time less danger than in a closed house.

… The Woods house described by this book has been used successfully and with the most satisfactory results in the deep snows and cold of British Columbia and in all parts of the United States, including bleak, cold and windy lake shore and seashore sections….to afford an abundance of pure open air day and night, with no discomfort to the fowls and not dangerous drafts about the roosts.” Pages 12 and 13 of Prince T Woods book Open Air Poultry Houses for All Climates https://books.google.com/books?id=o...&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Woods' design is based on the carbon monoxide and moisture from the chickens being warm so it rises. It wafts up to the ceiling and is pushed out the top of the window by the air coming in the bottom of the window to replace what rises. It moves slow enough there are no drafts but fast enough they are always breathing fresh air. If you have anything open in the other three sides or the roof with the open side then you get drafts. That cow barn shows all four sides closed so there probably isn't drafts but it is a lot less expensive to build a big door than put even a small window in. I like all the sunshine coming in too.

Mine, on the graph, is not a Woods'. I think I will need to build at least the front section of the Woods' design to get the depth to width proportions right for it to work like his concept. I'll be working on that this summer and fall.
 
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Thank you very much for the observations.

Yes, there is a reason for closing the ridge and soffit vents. This thread explains why pretty well.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...uction-help-appreciated.827891/#post-12079224

I got the idea from this
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/woods-style-house-in-the-winter.445004/#post-5566206 which led me to the book with the following quote

“Where cold, driving storms prevail, if the house is made tight as to roof, rear, and side walls, if the open front is covered with ¼-inch mesh galvanized wire netting, and if the house is made sufficiently deep in proportion to the expanse of the open front, storms will not drive in to any troublesome extent; there will be no danger of frosted combs under all ordinary conditions, and at all time less danger than in a closed house.

… The Woods house described by this book has been used successfully and with the most satisfactory results in the deep snows and cold of British Columbia and in all parts of the United States, including bleak, cold and windy lake shore and seashore sections….to afford an abundance of pure open air day and night, with no discomfort to the fowls and not dangerous drafts about the roosts.” Pages 12 and 13 of Prince T Woods book Open Air Poultry Houses for All Climates https://books.google.com/books?id=o...&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Woods' design is based on the carbon monoxide and moisture from the chickens being warm so it rises. It wafts up to the ceiling and is pushed out the top of the window by the air coming in the bottom of the window to replace what rises. It moves slow enough there are no drafts but fast enough they are always breathing fresh air. If you have anything open in the other three sides or the roof with the open side then you get drafts. That cow barn shows all four sides closed so there probably isn't drafts but it is a lot less expensive to build a big door than put even a small window in. I like all the sunshine coming in too.

Mine, on the graph, is not a Woods'. I think I will need to build at least the front section of the Woods' design to get the depth to width proportions right for it to work like his concept. I have all summer and fall to figure that out.

Woods Coops are great! But they are an integrated system that works only for that specific design. :)

Since you're concerned about winter I'll link you BYC's definitive article on cold-weather chicken care: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/cold-weather-poultry-housing-and-care.72010/
 
Why do they work only for that specific system? His pictures show houses without the half monitors as examples of successful open air designs. Curious, not challenging. Besides, even if the concept works for systems other than the one on this forum, I'm not sure it will work for this design.

If it does work, though, it might open up a lot more choices for retrofitting already build buildings or for those with other reasons for wanting the coop to look like a standard shed.

I do not see how leaving the ridge and soffits open will not result in much more drafts than I want even if I can box the roost to be draft free like the person in the link did (Wonderful information there!!!). Unless I close the south door and then I lose most of my light.
 
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Why do they work only for that specific system? His pictures show houses without the half monitors as examples of successful open air designs. Curious, not challenging. Besides, even if the concept works for other systems, I'm not sure it will work for this design.

If it does work, though, it might open up a lot more choices for retrofitting already build buildings or for those with other reasons for wanting the coop to look like a standard shed.

I do not see how leaving the ridge and soffits open will not result in much more drafts than I want even if I can box the roost to be draft free like the person in the link did (Wonderful information there!!!). Unless I close the south door and then I lose most of my light.

IIRC, and I admit that it's been a good while since I've read the details since my climate is better suited to an Open Air coop (a roofed wire box with a wind/rain shelter at one end), than a Woods Coop, the creator of those coops mathematically calculated the necessary ratio of depth to width and height, and the necessary amount of wire to ensure that the system works. :)

Perhaps someone with direct experience of Woods Coop variants will chime in?

Open soffits with a ridge vent are draft-free because the moving air flows along the roof above the birds' heads.
 

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