Where is Your Ventilation in your Coop and how high is it?

[GAchickennewbie]

I know chickens don't do well with drafts and am working on a coop design utilizing a 5 x 5' x-pen. My thought is to put panel around it, which would go up 4', put hardware cloth around that extra foot for ventilation at the top and a roof on top utilizing a PVC or polycarbonate roof panel.

This is the siding panel I am looking at:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-96-in-Composite-Panel-Siding-29055/202190402

This is the roofing panel I am looking at:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Suntuf-2...ate-Corrugated-Roofing-Panel-101929/100062380


My goal is to have enough ventilation where there is plenty of room for a breeze to go through, but not enough to make my girls sick.

What is everyone's thoughts?

 

[Judy]

I have a walk in coop with at least 6" open to the air all the way around the top of the walls. Also, about half of one wall and 1/4 of the opposite one are hardware cloth rather than wall. This is year round. Their roosts are in a corner that is out of the main air movement through the coop. I still run a box fan all summer.

In the south, we really don't have much weather that chickens consider cold. They might appreciate being out of the wind on cold winter nights, and a wide roost so they can cover their toes with their feathers when it's in the 20's.. A draft really refers to a single stream of air that hits them directly, not air movement in the coop.

IMO, the best design for a coop in the south is a 3 sided structure. Here are some setups people have found successful down here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/163417/please-show-me-your-hot-weather-coops/0_20

 

[GAchickennewbie]

Wow Judy!!!!

Thank you so much! That link gave me some excellent ideas! I really like the idea of a 3 sided coop.

This last winter was a kicker, but you and I both know we don't get winters like that often.