Ventilation and drafts...how to have one without the other in winter??

[nccountrygirl]

ok I have a ?. We took a thing that you use on the drill to cut out the hole for doornobs and put 3 holes at each gable end. Last winter we did not cover them up, should we put some kind of sliding cover over the holes for this winter to help keep heat in the coop, body heat that is as our coops are not insulated or heated.

 

[johnmayersquare]

Quote:
No offense, but "well, THERE'S your problem!"

. Yeah, even if the door is often open.

I mean, that is slightly over 1 square foot TOTAL, for 22 chickens. *Way* not enough. Having a front door open like 12 hrs a day on many days is still nothing like having two-wall crossventilation 24 hrs a day every day. Sorry.

Go get the reciprocating saw and make some much-bigger vent holes, hardwarecloth-screened, with flaps or any other arrangement to enable you to choose how many/much of them you have open during the winter... and your chickens will be MUCH better off (especially in wintertime, when ventilation is much more of an issue), as will your nose

Good luck,

Pat

If the coop is 10x10........and there are 22 chickens......Isn't that between 4-5 square feet per chicken???

Just wondering because if my math is wrong, my chicks are going to need a lot more room too

 

[Beekissed]

I was thinking the same thing.

You guys would have a heart attack over the drafty henhouse I have. Big gaps around the old doors, gaps between the old boards on the floor, etc. I do put up thick cardboard on the walls and thick plastic on the windows, but I leave the rest. When you walk into the henhouse of a winter morning, its immediately warmer, but it has fresh air blowing through the gaps, so no smells, even in the summer. Alot of the waste falls through those gaps in the floor boards and I keep expecting smell from the buildup. My birds mostly freerange and defecate outside, so its not much waste matter, but I still wonder. I notice the old folks that lived here had a wood stove in the coop at one time or another! I bet their chickens were toasty despite the gaps....or maybe, back then, the boards were new and hadn't gapped yet.

 

[New2Peeps]

Quote:
10 x 10 = 100 square feet divided by 22 chickens = 4.5 square feet per bird

At least that is what my math tells me

 

[MaransGuy]

They were referring to 1 square foot of ventilation for 22 birds.

 

[patandchickens]

Yes, sorry not to have been clearer...

...my point was that 1 square foot of total ventilation (plus door open 'as much as possible) is radically insufficient ventilation for 22 chickens.

Pat

 

[my first peepers]

Thanks ivan3, that's a great idea!

 

[New2Peeps]

Is there some rule of thumb for square footage of ventilation per chicken then? That would be great information to have.

 

[Suess hens]

I have hinged a section of my roofs so that I could open them up like a window that opens out and up. I don't always get these open every day, but I clean out the litter about every 10 days, and do a complete replacement about every 4 weeks. I truly have no smell in my coop. I also have another "window" for ventilation which is just a 1x1' window covered with screen for the winter, then has a "shutter" to cover it in the winter. I hear people talk about the smell of chickens, but I just haven't had the problem yet with cleaning out just the areas under the roosts every 10 days. (Of course all mine line up at night on one roost so it isn't that hard--one shot scrape)

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
It would but I am really not sure such a thing is possible. It would depend on:

number of chickens
size of coop (in CUBIC feet, not square feet)
what sorts of winds you have (velocity, and how often air is still)
your region's typical air humidity
what kind of bedding and how much and how often fully changed
whether you remove poo from a droppings board daily or whatever
and any other dampness sources (leaks, windblown rain, waterer
spills, etc)

In terms of a rule of thumb for air EXCHANGE, which is really the sensible measure of amount of ventilation, the numbers usually quoted as minimum standards are like 0.5 - 5 cubic feet per minute per chicken. How that translates into vent AREA, however, will depend on your wind speed and direction at any particular time. (Also to some extent on the size of individual vents, as small holes 'choke down' air movement more than large one)

This is why I'm an advocate of building LOTS of ventilation capacity, in a way such that it can be closed down to any degree desired (flap by flap, or by adjusting how far a slider is slid, or whatever) on various walls, according to what today's conditions require.

It is far easier and more pleasant (for you *and* the chickens) to have more ventilation capacity than you need on a given day, than to need more than you have.

JMHO,

Pat