Was wondering.. Have an idea!!

[MakNat]

Last year I stuffed the vents in my coop with hay. You know, the ones up by the ceiling. So the air could still move, but would be somewhat insulated... No good. Had TONS of mice. Thought this year I would use those tarp type feed bags to stuff up there. Was wondering if there is anything I could put in the bags to detour the mice? Cedar shavings?? Any ideas??

 

[Judy]

I would leave the vents open. If they cause a draft on your chickens, you need to find a way to vent the coop freely while avoiding the draft on them.

Ky isn't that cold for chickens. Really.

 

[MakNat]

You think?? We live on a ridge and it is windy as hell up here. The wind blows right through the coop. It is an old building that was here and there is NO WAY I could talk my husband into building me a new one...

 

[Judy]

But is there wind on the chickens? They have to have that air flow outward, and more than you would think.

I live in the south; our resident coop expert, or at least one of them, lives in Canada. Here is her page on ventilation: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-VENTILATION

At the top of her page is a link to her page about cold weather coops, too.

Maybe you need a sheet of plastic over the outside of the windward wall??? Or a few bales of hay in front of the roosts???

A lot of my coop has hardware cloth for walls, but even I cover a lot of it with plastic for winter.