Will these work?

[Blooie]

We are beginning construction on our coop this week - if the snow ever stops! Here's our situation. We live in Northern Wyoming. It's not unusual to have periods of a week straight (sometimes more!) of winter temps to -20, with it dropping even more at night. Then we may have a "warm" spell of 15 to 20 for a few weeks before we plummet again. Add in the usual Wyoming winds and we have a situation where I sometimes have to chip the neighbor's dog off my tires before I can run to the store. We can get snow here anytime from September to early June, although that's rare. In the summer we can experience periods where it reaches 100 degrees, but "it's a dry heat"! Teehee Most of the year our prevailing winds are from the North or Northwest. Given the weather extremes here, our coop will be insulated but, aside from perhaps a small 40 watt bulb to help with nighttime chores, we have no plans to put any supplemental heat in. This decision, of course, is subject to change depending on how the birds do.

The coop will face south. It will be 6' x 8', with the long sides running east/west. That way with the shed roof, most winds will blow up and over. The coop and run are also tucked right near a hedge of tall, thick lilac bushes on the west side, providing a windbreak in the winter and shade from the hot west sun and winds in summer.

Today we went to the Habitat Restore and picked up one of the windows we'll be using in the coop. There will be one on the south side - the larger one for winter sun - and the smaller one on the east side. While there I spotted the vinyl stuff pictured below. Each piece was about 10 feet long. It's a vent of some sort - I'm no expert but it looked like it might fit quite well tucked up at the top wall. It's got fine screening behind the louvers, and the louvers run the entire length. It's about 3 inches wide.

I know how critical ventilation is to a clean coop and healthy chickens. But I also have to balance the winter weather here. What I'm wondering is if this material would work inserted between the bottom of the roof and the top of the wall, the entire length. I'm not explaining this very well. I'd put a length of it on the south side, and a smaller piece on the bottom of the east wall for a cross air flow. I don't want the ladies to get chilled from a draft, but I know I have to really pay attention to ventilation.
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Shows the louvers


Ignore the wide white thing on the right - what I'm showing is the length and width of the strips.

 

[Judy]

The piece you want to put across the top is an ideal location for ventilation. I don't know that it's large enough, or has large enough openings rather. But I would definitely not put any ventilation openings down low, at all. The air will exchange right at the high vent without any other air coming in, or anything mechanical to cause it to exchange. Just the temp difference will do it. Openings down low would create drafts, and serve no purpose.

We have a couple of excellent articles written by a Canadian member about ventilation and winter coops. I'll give you the links, in case you haven't run across them. Actually, I suspect you haven't, because of thinking of leaving openings at a low level.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/winter-coop-temperatures

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...-go-out-there-and-cut-more-holes-in-your-coop

 

[jetdog]

Those are actually sofit vents for a house, I would put them in if i were you and I'm sure you can't beat the price from the restore.

 

[Blooie]

The piece you want to put across the top is an ideal location for ventilation. I don't know that it's large enough, or has large enough openings rather. But I would definitely not put any ventilation openings down low, at all. The air will exchange right at the high vent without any other air coming in, or anything mechanical to cause it to exchange. Just the temp difference will do it. Openings down low would create drafts, and serve no purpose.

We have a couple of excellent articles written by a Canadian member about ventilation and winter coops. I'll give you the links, in case you haven't run across them. Actually, I suspect you haven't, because of thinking of leaving openings at a low level.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/winter-coop-temperatures

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...-go-out-there-and-cut-more-holes-in-your-coop

Thank you. Actually I there's not much in the Learning Center I hadn't read, including the articles you cite. And you are right, there wasn't any mention of lower vents except for touching on the pop door. But there have been so many side threads about venting, and it was in one of those that I read about a small vent at the bottom. It talked about being sure that the vents were not directly opposite each other, but rather on adjacent walls (and away from the roosts), and that the lower vent should be closed off during the colder winters, which I forgot to say in my first post. The point of the lower vent was more for summer air circulation than winter.

It wasn't so much the size of the vent openings that caught my eye on this material but the fact that they run the entire length of it. And of course when I asked my hubby this morning, he thought that with so much humidity being generated by the chickens his concern was that it wouldn't take long for those small vents to frost over, effectively closing them and making them worthless.

So I guess it's back to square one on the ventilation. I thank you kindly for your response.

Those are actually sofit vents for a house, I would put them in if i were you and I'm sure you can't beat the price from the restore.

Yah!! That's what I thought, but I'm certainly no construction whiz and I couldn't think of what they were called for the life of me.

Thanks for getting back to me.

 

[Judy]

IMO, the simplest solution for ventilation is an overhanging roof and hardware cloth over the open space between the tops of the walls and the slanted roof. That's why I like roofs that slant only to one side.