Winterizing Coop/Light and Plastic Sheeting

[ilooni]

Thanks for the Pic...Gives me a little cheat guide of how to do it (seeing that i sometimes have a hard time getting the bf to help out) lol.

 

[elmo]

I winterized our "summer" coop recently with the 6 mil plastic, then I covered the plastic with some leftover cheap reed rolled fencing:

The fencing helps keep the plastic from flapping and makes it look better, I think, sort of like a Tiki coop. The roof is made from polycarbonate panels which I covered with the reed fencing too.

It gets pretty cozy in there on sunny days.

 

[BitterrootChickenLady]

Not half inch -- half OF THE SIDE totally open. Really really.

Pat

We luve in western montana. We had temps down to -25 degrees durijg the day this winter. I am going to build a coop and run this summer, for chcikens next year. I planned to build a coveres run 20' x 8' x 6' h. Inwas going to use 6mil clear plastic sheeting from the ground up to 5.5' or higher, to allow some venting but keep most the warmth in, so they can be in the run during the days, not stuck in the coop.
With those very freezing temps, would you still suggest more venting? Like only going up 3' high w the sheeting?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

We luve in western montana. We had temps down to -25 degrees durijg the day this winter. I am going to build a coop and run this summer, for chcikens next year. I planned to build a coveres run 20' x 8' x 6' h. Inwas going to use 6mil clear plastic sheeting from the ground up to 5.5' or higher, to allow some venting but keep most the warmth in, so they can be in the run during the days, not stuck in the coop.
With those very freezing temps, would you still suggest more venting? Like only going up 3' high w the sheeting?

Welcome to BYC @BitterrootChickenLady .

Unfortunately the member you quoted hasn't been on BYC in a long while. You may get some answers if you started your own thread in the coop forum. We have a lot of older threads on BYC with great information, but may of the members are no longer here to answer any questions about them.

 

[linguini]

I wasn't going to put the plastic on the top of the run, as we are going to be putting plastic corrugated roofing up, just around it for wind/snow protection. It has been reinforced and I hope doesn't cave in. Maine is extremely unpredictable in winters. Sometimes 5 + feet snow for winter sometimes just cold cold cold with storms here and there. I have asked around up here, but everyone seems to have a different view of what is actually required to keep chickens not from being miserable and risk their health.

We have a real hack "roofing" for the covered run, since we didn't know what we were doing, putting up layers out of sequence. But it works so far for 3.5 years: (our run is 8x8x8)

The run was wrapped with 1/2 inch chickenwire, heavy gauge, all sides and top.
slanted tarp as roof under the covered wire,
2ft strip corrigated plastice along each side on top of the wire, stops the snow from going into the run
internal gutter at the bottom of the tarp, cut a small section of the wire and stick out of the cube for rain/snow drainage

We use marine vinyl to wrap around the sides for winter. 20 mil. slightly more expensive than clear table cloth, but much stronger and reusable every year.

https://www.marinevinylfabric.com/products/clear-marine-vinyl?variant=40112146939988