ventilation in coop

[Haney3]

Why is it very impotant to have more ventilation in your coop than a window and the small doors the chickens come in and out of. I know you need a door for yourself but in winter isn't it just making it colder for them to have vents by the ceiling.

 

[annek]

I am by no means a chicken expert but from what I have read here chickens put out a lot of water. If it has nowhere to go then it makes the air damp. Bad for the chickens to breathe and makes for a damp/uncomfortable coop. pat has a really good ventilation page that goes over a lot of it. After reading it I cut another 2x4 vent in my coop!

Don't know where you live but if it is cold the dampness increases the chance of frostbite. The low vents get closed in the winter to prevent drafts but the upper ones are kept open. Chickens do fine in the cold but if it is damp it creates problems.

 

[Renee]

Well, it depends on how much the air is moving. If you have a very small coop and just a few birds and large windows and doors the ventilation will be fine, but it will be colder for them.

The reason ventilation is necessary even if it is cold is that the ammonia in the poop builds up so quickly that your chickens will die of respiratory problems. The vents in the eaves allow the ammonia to escape.

I don't have ventilation in the eaves of my coop, but it is very small, I have three chickens, and I clean it every morning.

 

[Haney3]

I'm in Colorado. We are building two eight by eight coops and wanted to make sure we we're doing it right. Thanks!

 

[annek]

My thought was it was easier to put in the vents and then if I don't want to use them I just close them up. Much easier to do when you are building. Very easy to cover.

 

[patandchickens]

Cold is not as much of a problem for most chicken breeds as *humid*. They get frostbit much sooner (sometimes right at freezing) if the air is damp, whereas if the air is as dry as your climate allows, most breeds are fine considerably below freezing (like, in many cases to below 0 Farenheit, sometimes a lot below). Ammonia fumes are also bad for the birds' respiratory system and can predispose chickens to other health problems.

The two problems with relying on popdoor and window are that a) they are quite often not at all enough, especially in the warmer time of the year; and b) in winter, you don't want air pouring in the middle of a wall, you want your ventilation high up on the walls and preferably adjustable so that in really nasty weather you can have only the downwind side open.

There is more in depth discussion of the subject on my Big Ol' Ventilation page, link below in my .sig .

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[jhfields]

I'm also building my chicken coop, good luck