Ventilation on Amish Style Coop

[Appalachickens]

This was the coop I had decided to buy before my husband agreed to build a walk-in one with me. It seemed much more sturdy than a lot of commercially-made coops and I thought I’d be able to make some modifications to make it work for me.

I have two questions that occurred to me for my own build while reading this thread:
1. Is there a way to recreate the radiant heat barrier thingy in the roof? Maybe with that hard foam insulation with the reflective cover? Set into the roof supports it would be too high for chickens to peck.
2. If I have a shed style roof that slopes a foot over 8 feet, would the two triangles of space at the top be adequate or will I need more ventilation that that? (8x8 coop, 9 chickens is the plan)

 

[aart]

I have two questions that occurred to me for my own build while reading this thread:
1. Is there a way to recreate the radiant heat barrier thingy in the roof? Maybe with that hard foam insulation with the reflective cover? Set into the roof supports it would be too high for chickens to peck.
2. If I have a shed style roof that slopes a foot over 8 feet, would the two triangles of space at the top be adequate or will I need more ventilation that that? (8x8 coop, 9 chickens is the plan)

Yep, put the foam between the tops of rafters and under the roof sheating.

Best to have large roof overhangs all around, leaving soffits open high and low for ventilation and the 'triangles' open.

Might be good, and polite, to start a new thread with your coop plans for advice.

 

[Appalachickens]

Yep, put the foam between the tops of rafters and under the roof sheating.

Best to have large roof overhangs all around, leaving soffits open high and low for ventilation and the 'triangles' open.

Might be good, and polite, to start a new thread with your coop plans for advice.

Thanks. I will when I’m closer to building, but those two questions felt related to the OP’s coop modifications.

 

[Kerry Ellen]

Would be good to see inside the actual coop near the eaves front and back.
But I would open up this soffit area....the one circled in front and the back.
View attachment 2560614

Yep. I have this coop but in medium size. The factory installed vents/windows were NOT enough ventilation. Did exactly what you recommended here and fixed up the issues I was having overnight. Overall it’s a very sturdy coop!

 

[Sueby]

Would be good to see inside the actual coop near the eaves front and back.
But I would open up this soffit area....the one circled in front and the back.
View attachment 2560614

I have an Amish style coop too & I opened up the eaves like @aart drew in red in both the front & back. It's covered with HC on the inside. I also leave one window wide open all winter, I put an HVAC filer in there & it blocks all the breeze but still allows for air circulation. My coop has a metal roof & a ridge vent that runs the whole length too.

I'll take a couple pics when I go out to collect eggs.

 

[Sueby]

It's too cold to go out there, so here's a pic from when it was new. I cut out the parts circled with a sawzall & covered them with HC. I did every one of the eaves, front & back. Super simple but adds lots of good ventilation.

ETA: Ok, I took a pic.

 

[AprilsZoo]

I'm still curious as to why they wouldn't have more ventilation if its needed. you would think you would hear about more issues and that it would make the company look bad if chickens ended up sick and dying. you could argue cost, but i dont see that it would cost any more than it would now.

Thing is, outside of forums like this, there’s no-one else telling consumers that those coops aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. The company doesn’t look bad to anyone who‘s in the market for a backyard coop for the simple reason is that among the chicken keepers who buy one of the pre-fab style coops, and then go on to cram the “intended” number of chickens in there, very few will ever *know* that the reason they’re experiencing poor production, or sick & dying chickens is somehow related to a too-small coop with too little ventilation. Most will think of a thousand other reasons before they suspect that. Even if they are one of the rare keepers who seek vet care for their birds, it’s unlikely to be identified as the cause— or even a contributing factor. Unlike the people here, I have yet to hear a vet ask, “What is your coop like? How big is it & how many birds are in there?” More often, the keepers just replace the chicken and assume it was just “one of those things”.

The companies who produce the flimsy coops are the same ones who sell similarly produced rabbit hutches & dog houses. As a matter of fact, frequently you can find an almost identical model chicken coop as a rabbit hutch— they bump out a portion to make a nest box area, and remove a shelf inside and add a roosting bar instead. Sometimes it’s exactly the same thing, with a dowel in the box and in the instructions it outlines where to install it. By the time the purchaser realizes the coop/hutch/house is crap... they’ve usually already bought the animals that need the structure, and they're stuck using it anyway.

Until I found this site, I never knew a chicken could have a life expectancy longer than 3-4 years. I was raised thinking that the more eggs you got from a hen, the shorter her life would be. That was just the way it was. No one was taking a hen to a vet. Actually, you counted yourself lucky if you had a hen who popped out eggs like a gum-ball machine and lived into her 3rd year! Any eggs you got that year were a bonus! Now, admittedly, this was nearly 4 decades ago.

 

[aart]

ETA: Ok, I took a pic.

This looks great!
How hard was it to remove the blocking?

 

[Sueby]

This looks great!
How hard was it to remove the blocking?

It was super simple. From the inside I just laid the sawzall flat on the top of the 2x4 & cut left to right. The pieces just fell out. What I was cutting was actually the top of the side panels so they were only nailed in as high as that 2x4 anyway (if that makes sense). It's like it was made to cut those pieces out, lol.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

That makes sense. But still, it wouldn't HURT to ADD ventilation would it?
In the meantime, I'll get a measurement on the coop windows.

Never hurts to add more ventilation unless it puts drafts or rain on your birds.

These pre-fab jobs which look vaguely house-like seem to satisfy our human sense of aesthetics - which sells them just fine - but they really don't seem to have considered ventilation properly at all. The big commercial grow ops, with chickens packed in like sardines, have monster fans at one end to force air flow, and even then they are environments with high heat, humidity, and ammonia concentrations, where people wear protective suits for prolonged exposure (or so they say when advertising jobs around here).

Yet the typical home chicken owner, while generally allowing far more space per bird, places them in a coop with entirely passive air flow designs. THAT is why the 1' per bird rule seems so large, its outside our normal experiences - but venting a hen house passively is like venting a kitchen or a bathroom passively. Those little round vents and tiny louvered squares are no better than the ventilation on the typical porta-potty. Our birds can be raised in better.