- Apr 16, 2011
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Greetings! I live in Hampton Roads, Virginia. Our area has evil summertime highs in the 90's with "feels like" temperatures well over 100 many days during the summer. In the winter, our climate is more like coastal North Carolina than what you may think of as Virginia, with average lows right around freezing. That being said, we can have blizzards, and the past two winters have been especially bad with several Snowpocalypses. But obviously I've been more focused on controlling heat and humidity, with cold protection in winter way at the bottom of the list.
The coop is almost done (finally, and yes I'm one of those freaks with fully feathered clucking birds in the house waiting on the half-built coop!) and we're debating which of our vents to make "winterizable." Here's the plan:
- Roughly 4' by 4' coop on stilts, plus a nesting box extension. Nesting boxes on one side, blank wall, cleaning/access hatch side, and pop door side.
- The pop door and the blank wall will each have two smallish (6"x6" to 4"x4" depending on what we have room for) windows covered in hardware wire up near the roof. I am not planning on ever winterizing these.
- The cleaning/access hatch will have a removable door, and right now the plan is to make two versions, a solid winter version and a "screen door" made out of hardware cloth in a frame, which I can switch out as the seasons change by undoing the hinges. The access door will be huge, the majority of the wall on that side.
- On the opposite wall, above the nest boxes, I have room for a large window that runs the length of the coop, 3' 10" by 7". This will be covered in hardware cloth, and this is the window for which in my mind there is debate about whether we'll need to winterize it or not. It will be up at the top half of the coop. There will not be cross breezes coming through it as the opposite wall will be winterized in the cold season.
- The roosts will run parallell to the nest boxes, so parallell to the walls with the long window and the access hatch.
- Our chickens include two Buff Orpingtons, a Cinnamon Queen (RSL), two Wyandottes, and a White Leghorn. I know the leghorn is the one I have to watch for frostbite etc.
(If somehow this doesn't turn out to be enough ventilation, we still have the option of cutting holes along the bottom of the blank wall, and cutting out another window in the small portion of wall above the access hatch so that it really is the case that the whole side is hardware cloth.)
The coop is almost done (finally, and yes I'm one of those freaks with fully feathered clucking birds in the house waiting on the half-built coop!) and we're debating which of our vents to make "winterizable." Here's the plan:
- Roughly 4' by 4' coop on stilts, plus a nesting box extension. Nesting boxes on one side, blank wall, cleaning/access hatch side, and pop door side.
- The pop door and the blank wall will each have two smallish (6"x6" to 4"x4" depending on what we have room for) windows covered in hardware wire up near the roof. I am not planning on ever winterizing these.
- The cleaning/access hatch will have a removable door, and right now the plan is to make two versions, a solid winter version and a "screen door" made out of hardware cloth in a frame, which I can switch out as the seasons change by undoing the hinges. The access door will be huge, the majority of the wall on that side.
- On the opposite wall, above the nest boxes, I have room for a large window that runs the length of the coop, 3' 10" by 7". This will be covered in hardware cloth, and this is the window for which in my mind there is debate about whether we'll need to winterize it or not. It will be up at the top half of the coop. There will not be cross breezes coming through it as the opposite wall will be winterized in the cold season.
- The roosts will run parallell to the nest boxes, so parallell to the walls with the long window and the access hatch.
- Our chickens include two Buff Orpingtons, a Cinnamon Queen (RSL), two Wyandottes, and a White Leghorn. I know the leghorn is the one I have to watch for frostbite etc.
(If somehow this doesn't turn out to be enough ventilation, we still have the option of cutting holes along the bottom of the blank wall, and cutting out another window in the small portion of wall above the access hatch so that it really is the case that the whole side is hardware cloth.)
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