Who says tight, warm, no draft coop?? Nonsense!!

[poultrypatch]

Remember, we're each allowed to have an opinion.
Liz
Rochester, MA

**edited for inflammatory commentary**

 

[19hhbelgian]

Quote:

At our old house, we had 12 packing peanuts, that I raised. We only had ducks and geese at the time, no chickens, so no chicken coop. The boys were out all the time. In really ugly weather I would "collect" them once they roosted for the night so they didn't get frozen to the trailer that they always slept on. Other wise, my roosters were totally out in the elements. Those roos were extremely healthy, and I never lost one of them to health related issues. Although, I have to say, I didn't see any egg production go up

 

[chickeydee]

I Live in Texas and I have lost 3 chickens and at the time I had a 4x8 coop that was vented and I was always having to clean it aleast once every 3 months It had the deep liter and no mice .Just thought of the smell and what it was doing to the chickens . I decide to build this open air coop and it has a removeable wood floor and sits up on cinder blocks .It is not damp and does not smell at all . It has all the walls just not closed up . I have sand on the floor and I have not had to clean it at all . It sits in field and I have a security light on a pole . I think it just depends on the person and where they live and their experences. I live in the country and my chickens open range all day long and if I hear them yelling I have a rafle and I will shoot it if it is on my property and starts to approach and attack my live stock . My grandmother had a farm when I was young she had prize winners at the state fair ,beatuful rooters .Huge .She just let her run all over the place ,even in the house ,but when it came time they would all head out to a large shed . It was a much more simple .life . I will find my camera and take a picture of it . Also I am glad that we have a right to our opinion and I know some of us are older and some of us are younger ,even if it is at heart . I have children ,grown men and I hear them always telling me I live in the past ,but I do not,I like the simple life ,and one day they will say the same to there children .

 

[gamebirdsonly]

Quote:
Sounds like some of my birds.

 

[PandoraTaylor]

I have read it......repeatedly....but still can't figure out how to make that work here, when even with 4 walls & Roof, they still get Frostbite, and freeze to death if left unheated. I have seen it at a friends.

I have been blessed not to have this happen to me, thus far.

 

[Cetawin]

I believe in tons of ventilation but if I had a three sided coop here, I would have no chickens in the morning. Between the mountain lions, bobcats, fisher cats, coons, fox, possum, and black bears....it would be over before I got my jammies on and in bed.

So, my girls get four walls, 2 windows and tons of ventilation including a small fan circulating year round and a heat lamp over their waterer in the winter. So the author of this book may kiss my patootie because these are my birds not his.

 

[DawnSuiter]

I read a similar book before I got started, and as you can see

I'm a firm believer. The "hen house" (red) has the most walls, but not a single one of them is solid... the side wall connecting to the other runs is completely open with wire on two pallets, the back has a big window, the side a tall window, the front is more than 50% open.. and the rest of the coops? Well they are all just roofs. For the winter we threw up a piece of privacy fence on the windy side of the 4 post coop (far left) but even that doesn't cover the whole wall.

I love love love them. Of course it only snows here sometimes, and it rarely stays below freezing for any length of time, maybe a few hours in the middle of the night and the occasional day.

But DRAFTY is another thing.. no one is drafty. We live in a holler or small valley so the wind flow through my yard is fairly consistant and predictable. So I took that into account, blocked the floor & roosts from drafts, which in my mind means a direct breeze, and that's about it.

 

[LynneP]

Our coop is like Fort Knox, but well-vented with the option to close down during storms, especially blizzards. A three-sided feature is NOT an option. There is a very old coop on our property too, and it is 4-sided and secure. So much for the old-timers exposing their animals as a buffet for wilderness predators. In fact, we can't free-range even when with our birds- the foxes and coyotes come out during the day. Myth and reality are different creatures.

The only place I have heard of 3-sided coops in Canada is in that book- I have never witnessed it despite extensive travel, and here most poultry owners use part of their barns as coops. Prove me wrong!

 

[gsim]

There is an old,old saying : "The healthiest chickens come from the sorriest coops. " I take this to mean that they were likely to not be tight structures. I have heard of people even in southern Canada raising chickens in three-walled coops that face south. There would have to be considerations such as roof overhang being great enough to keep rain from a south wind blowing in and soaking the litter which would be really bad. Also it would have to have far better protection than chicken wire for the openings. I would not do one in Canada in spite of what I have read about, but no doubt most of the 'lower 48 states' would be ok for most winters if enough things were taken into consideration. Again, their combs ,toes, and wattles can freeze, even in a closed coop.

I did 4 walls with two gable vents, one central turbine vent, and continuous soffit vents both sides. It can be closed completely and still breathe without any drafts near the chooks where they roost. If it was going to be below 20, I would put a heater out there to prevent frostbite. I am closing the turbine vent this week until March via a garbage bag anyway.

 

[patandchickens]

There is a really big difference between what the book is advocating -- *large* open-fronted structures, for flocks of like a hundred or more chickens -- versus a miniature version scaled down for a flock of five or twenty-five birds. (It might work ok for few chickens if you still had the full-scale building, but who's going to do that?)

You can't scale it down that way and have it work, for several reasons.

I am a big advocate of good ventilation, and coops that are three-sided (with the fourth side mesh) or even more open air than that... but I really do not think that people should try building a three-sided (even if it's fully predatorproofed) 8x8 coop in, say, Minnesota and expect their flock to do well over the winter.


Pat