Ventilation for coop inside of barn

[avjudge]

Anything to help with the barn clutter! Or am I the only one with that problem?!

My barn has 2 stalls (supposedly for the horses) but one is jammed full of stuff still to be sorted from our move almost 5 years ago!

At least (as of last summer) it’s all in the stall vs one stall and 1/2 the loft. So this winter we could fit all the hay for our animals & don’t have to scrounge for more at the end of February! (That worked fine 2 years ago after a good hay harvest but we really had to scramble last year and I believe this year would have been equally bad)

 

[addctd2plnts]

We have predator proofed two horse stalls in our barn for our ducks and LOVE it! Not sure where you live but we have agricultural fans that we do put on in our summer heat. Missouri can be over 90 degrees for most of the summer and even over 100 for a week at a time. The high humidity here demands air flow, or animals can die. I tend to leave them on 24/7 because the air helps dry out the bedding and makes it last longer. It's not enough to combat the amount of water they sling around if kept inside, but as long as they go outside during the day, it really helps extend the life of the bedding.

Because the stalls are solid wood on the bottom, we chose to use 1/2" hardware cloth over the ceiling. I think it helps allow more of the humidity from wet bedding to evaporate. Ducks obviously don't have issues with frostbite, but I've noticed how much they love it when I put a fresh dry layer of bedding over the old and damp bedding, if it's very cold. I suspect their intuition tells them when it's cold to find a nice dry spot to sit for the night.