ventilation and drafts

[3forfree]

I'm going to make a coop from an ice shanty that was given to me, and need to know how much and where the ventilation should be. The shanty is 5x8 ft, and 7 ft tall. I've raised pigeons before, and vented the eaves, and this seemed to be enough for them. Also reading about drafts in the winter, I live in central michigan, and sometimes it gets cold. Are vents near the bottom necessary? If someone would direct me to a method for doing this it would help. Thanks,,,,, Al

 

[Lesa]

Do a search for Pats Ventilation page. She is the ventilation Goddess, around here!

 

[elmo]

Here's that ventilation link:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-VENTILATION

and a related and equally excellent page about winter coops:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-winter-coop-temperatures


Short answer, no you really don't want vents lower down in winter because this sets up the conditions for creating a draft within your coop.

 

[patandchickens]

What they said. (Well, yeah, since they're citing my ventilation page LOL)

IME the best thing in winter is to just have your open vents as high as possible and on the downwind side. (It is advantageous to have vents on more than one side of the coop so that you can open and close things as the wind moves around)

Air will happily go BOTH directions through a single high-up opening -- warm air will leave thru the upper half of that opening and cool air will slink in the bottom portion. If you do not believe me, open a window in your house on a nonwindy (still air) day and see what happens

As far as amount of ventilation, my philosophy is that it is better to have more than you need and just have some of it closed, than to need more than you have and be gettin' frostbite and havin' to hack holes in your coop in the middle of winter

Good luck, have fun,

Pat