Woods Fresh-Air coop build

[Beej7]

I’m considering charring the skids to help preserve them. I am planning on elevating the coop a couple feet off the ground, so the skids wouldn’t be in ground contact anyway. But the humidity and shade makes me feel like charring the pine skids would be wise (and a fun experiment).

Question is, do you all think the chickens would eat the charred wood? Im sure they will try some, and I’m not worried about that. More concerned with them eating a ridiculous amount for 2 reasons:

1. Who knows what a bunch of charred wood would do inside a chicken
2. The charred wood is what is supposed to be protecting the skids

What are your opinions?

 

[aart]

My 14 chickens heat this Woods coop about 7 degrees warmer than outside temperature according to the thermometer mounted just in front of the roosts like yours.

Is your outside therm mounted on the coop?

 

[Beej7]

A chicken's "build" is designed to retain heat not give it off.

Further, the notion that any animal the size of even 14 chickens could raise the temperature of a space many many times the cubic space of the animals is preposterous. Simple physics can be used to prove this.

IF your statements are the result of careful measurements and are accurate there is some other explanation for the rise in heat.

Good lord you seem like a difficult person.

Our “build” is to plant seeds, dig holes, catch fish and hunt animals but we spend the majority of our time sitting on ass and playing with plastics. Sometimes the way things actually are is different than the way that they “should be”.

And even if a chicken is designed to retain heat, which no doubt they are, it cannot be 100% efficient or they obviously would overheat and die due to constant heat production but zero heat loss. So that lost heat must go somewhere. Heat rises…”simple physics can prove this”.

Im busy enough as it is so I’m not about to go rearrange all the thermometers on my property to try to decipher if some are a degree or two off and which ones are more accurate. It’s irrelevant anyway. Hell, a couple months ago when I bought a few thermometers I noticed that right there on the store shelf they were all reading something different. Most were 1-2 degrees different from eachother and one was 4 degrees off. If they aren’t dependable and accurate brand new sitting on a store shelf I dont know how we can be squabbling about a few degrees in real life situations.

 

[Beej7]

FWIW

I did the calculations using commonly available online calculators.

Watts to BTU conversion:

1. It is generally accepted that a chicken gives off 10 watts of heat per hour, 14 chickens is therefor 140 watts.
2. 140 watts is equal to 477.7 BTUs per Hour.

BTU heating:

3. Using coop size information provided above the requirement is to heat 36 sq ft of space.
4. I used the following assumptions: Climate Zone 6; poor insulation (many leakages and windows); average sun exposure.
5. The calculator indicates that 2,178 BTU per hour is required to heat the 36 sq ft or 4.5 times the heat given off by 14 birds

Conclusion:

The presence of chickens in a coop will NOT increase the temperature inside.

I do not intend to be "difficult" but I do value accurate information, my apologies to @Beej7.

This is the most illogical unrealistic thing I’ve heard all day. And I keep up with the news!

How can one accurately quantify how much energy a living being generates? Life is full of variables, and the majority of those variables cannot be accounted for in any helpful way.

What breed of chicken?
Standard or bantam?
Rooster or hen?
Healthy or sick?
Molting or fully feathered?
Parasites or not?
Free range or commercial fed?
Any high energy treats being fed to them? If so, what, how much and when?

What about the coop? What is it made of? Are gaps sealed? Is the door sealed? Is there caulking? Is there insulation? How much snow is there on the roof? Is it windy, it so, how windy and what direction?

We’re talking about real life here, not computers and statistics.

 

[WI chickens]

FWIW

I did the calculations using commonly available online calculators.

Watts to BTU conversion:

1. It is generally accepted that a chicken gives off 10 watts of heat per hour, 14 chickens is therefor 140 watts.
2. 140 watts is equal to 477.7 BTUs per Hour.

BTU heating:

3. Using coop size information provided above the requirement is to heat 36 sq ft of space.
4. I used the following assumptions: Climate Zone 6; poor insulation (many leakages and windows); average sun exposure.
5. The calculator indicates that 2,178 BTU per hour is required to heat the 36 sq ft or 4.5 times the heat given off by 14 birds

Conclusion:

The presence of chickens in a coop will NOT increase the temperature inside.

I do not intend to be "difficult" but I do value accurate information, my apologies to @Beej7.

Can I ask where you got 36 sq ft? To do the calculation correctly, I believe you would need to calculate cubic ft. A 6'x10' coop, if that is what we are talking about, with an average ceiling height of say 6' (guessing here due to the odd shape of the Woods coop) would be 360 cubic feet. From that number you can get a fairly accurate idea of BTUs to heat to a given number, or a given rise in temp.

 

[3KillerBs]

This. And in trucks sometimes, as well as housing. Also, it is useful for feed requirements.

Also things like differences in heat (or cold) tolerance. If chicks are regularly exposed to higher (or lower) temperatures, it affects how much heat their muscles generate so how well they tolerate heat (or cold). Possibly, it doesn't have to be chicks but that was the study I saw most recently.

That is just the poultry field. Students in engineering and biology sometimes design equipment or studies that incolve measuring heat generation of animals. One of my physiology classes did so with mice. Actually that class had virtual labs the mimicked studies that used to be done in real life.

I also find the whole topic interesting. Irrelevant in many ways for backyard purposes but interesting.

Yes, it's quite interesting.

 

[Beej7]

Also things like differences in heat (or cold) tolerance. If chicks are regularly exposed to higher (or lower) temperatures, it affects how much heat their muscles generate so how well they tolerate heat (or cold). Possibly, it doesn't have to be chicks but that was the study I saw most recently.

Interesting, there’s another variable that I didn’t include. I dont follow the rules when raising chicks (strict temperature requirements, constant heat lamp, 5 degree reduction in temperature every week, nothing but chick starter feed).

These chickens were incubated, hatched and raised by a hen, inside this coop alongside the rest of the flock. They have absolutely no supplemental heat at all in their life. They were eating bugs, picking through dirt and eating small amounts of herbs and fruit scraps from about day 4. They hatched in early September and had to deal with suboptimal temperatures pretty much their whole life so far. They barely feathered out by the time we started getting freezing temps.

Maybe, just maybe these birds are hardier and able to produce more heat than the sad, abused factory chickens that were doubtlessly used to gather all the numbers and statistics that are being used to quantify the amount of energy a living chicken can generate.

Once again, we’re talking about real live beings here not machines.