What Kind Of Ventilation?

Marc, Just my opinion but for the amount of footprint allocated...I'd take away from the storage/people area and give more to chickens. After all they are the ones living there, not people. They would do better with more room considering the amount of space your planning for stuff that can fit in alot smaller area. Just a suggestion.
Erik
 
I was thinking I might reduce the people area down to 5 feet and increase the chicken area to 7 feet, but with a room 6 X 12 they would have 72 square feet and we were going to keep it less than 10 hens. This forum suggests 4 square feet per chicken of floor area so 10 chickens X 4 sq ft would only be 40 sq ft. Still think I need more room?
 
Yo Marc, Ya not gonna have 10 chickens...trust me. Your wife is gonna want more, your kids or grand-kids are gonna want more..and yes, you are gonna want more. Go bigger now...you won't regret it. Just keep reading posts here on BYC..you'll understand. It's addictive. By the way, wife works for a Judge and moonlights with law fire(23 years). Chickens have become her stress reliever after seeing the scum of the earth everyday in court.
Erik
 
Yeah, I am starting to rethink my whole design. I've just ordered Prince Woods book on open air coops. After looking at the pictures and showing them to Miss Harriet, my little project has now become an obsession already. Thanks to all.

Please keep the advice coming.
 
You might consider a 8x16 instead of a 12' square. A couple of reasons. Most building materials come in 8' and 4' sections. 12' lengths are not bad, but 8' increments could mean less cutting and waste. Just something to consider.

The other reason. The wider the building the heavier your rafters and general roofing needs to be to support that wider span. With a 8' width as opposed to 12', you can get by with less expensive wood or, with the same wood, have a much stronger roof.

Slope your roof away from the run. You do not want the rainwater runoff going into your run. It will be wet and muddy enough.

I suggest as much ventilation as you can stand. It gets hot in Kentucky and chickens do not do hot real well, since they are wearing a down coat. You need to get rid of the summer heat. As others have said, cold is not your enemy, humidity and ammonia is. You need good ventilation in the winter to get rid of both. You do not want breezes on your birds on the roosts in the winter. Wind chill is bad. Your ventilation needs ot be well above the roosts so any breezr passes over their heads.

Have overhangs on your roof and put ventilation openings under the overhangs. Here are a couple of shots that kind of show what I did. I built mine on the end of a shed. You can see that the one wall is on the inside, so you can put plenty of ventilation there without rainwater coming in. You might not be able to tell, but hardware cloth covers all those openings.

22249_ventilation.jpg
22249_west_ventilation.jpg
 
Go bigger now...you won't regret it.

^ yes to this

We had the option of building whatever coop we wanted - I chose to renovate our unused 8x10 shed instead.
only 3ft of that is "the porch" (food & supply storage) ... and we only have 2 chickens. And nope, we won't be getting more because that is our limit... and 2 hens fit perfect in there.

Most building materials come in 8' and 4' sections.

I agree about cutting/wasting/measurements - I planned our run with that in mind.
8ft beams and 4ft lengths of hardware cloth = no cutting.
I have photos on my page, feel free to use an idea
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