Woods-style house in the winter

[JackE]

Quote:
Jack can you please explain to me how the deep littler thing works on an elvated/stilted coop? is the base of the coop timber? if so how does the deep litter not rot the wood?

I am genuinely curious as I have read good things about the deep litter method and was wondering for the long term how it would work without rotting the bottom. Did you add any soil first?

Thanks Nae x

I would think that the bedding would have to be excessively damp or wet to rot the deck out. I don't have a bare wooden floor under the bedding. I have covered the entire deck with a rubberized roofcoating material. As far as to how it works. I just add another fresh bag of shavngs when the old stuff starts to break down. I also somewhat regularly throw cracked corn/seed in there so the chickens can do the work of turning the bedding. I empty and replace bedding twice a year. (Spring and Fall) Finally, No, I didn't add any dirt to the bedding, just pine shavings.
Jack

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Actually I *have* sat in an equivalent-shaped-and-proportioned building -- two of them, actually, one a garage and one a horse manure/shavings shed -- with not a candle but a thin strip of Kleenex.

The reason I did this was that I read that part of Woods' book and said "Hey, that does not match my impressions of what I've felt in those type buildings, and it also is a very suspicious and unrealistic looking 'diagram".

Indeed, what he reports DID NOT match particularly closely my experience when testing it.

Now there is no way to know whether his particular coop was magically-different, and I acknowledge I've not done this in an open-front narrow building built *as a coop* as opposed to for other purposes, but, Yeah right

I know THIS, As I have said, I don't care from whichever direction the wind blows. You don't feel any "Swriling U-shaped circulation". If that was the case, then my chickens would be living in the deadly DRAFT everbody is afraid of.

First, I believe you are misunderstanding why a draft is a problem.

Second, your coop is facing South so you would not have a lot of *opportunity* to experience strong winds blowing almost directly in; that is the whole purpose of them facing S or SE.

And finally, EVEN WOODS AKNOWLEDGES that there is air movement at the back of this style house in some circumstances. I have too many other things to do right now to look up page numbers (but I will if you let me know you want me to), but when he is discussing some examples used in the North he observes that some users found that they had to install solid boards underneath the roost in order to *get* chickens to use the full roost in windy winter weather, and Woods' own interpretation of this is that there were cold breezes blowing up the birds' backsides on the roost until the boards were installed.

So it is not just me -- he himself agrees it happens (albeit at a differnet part of the book than the happy little alleged-candleflame-experiment).

If I was to enter the house and shut the door behind me. I feel NO swirling winds in the house, None. Now, say I open the entry door. Now I can feel the wind/air flow through the house, Because there is a path for the wind/air to travel. Now, what would be the reason for that? I'll have to go with the "Air Cushion" theory.

Oh well yes OBVIOUSLY if you provide a thru-path you get MORE wind thru the house. My point is simply that this air cushion business does not prevent there from being *any* breeze in the back of the house.

I almost sense a hostility to Dr. Woods from you, You have practically called him a kook and a liar. He is no longer here to defend himself, But I am.

Well, I'm sure he would appreciate your misplaced loyalty. But if you were to read my other posts on the subject I greatly admire him and the design of coop he is promoting, and think they should be much more widely used today.

I do not see how it is necessary however to idolize him to the point of blindness to some of his very real (small but nonzero) faults and inaccuracies.

JMHO,

Pat​

 

[JackE]

Pat, I am not so much defending him, I'm more so defending myself and what I have posted.
Jack

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Against *what*?

It just seemed (perhaps I misread) that you were suggesting it does not matter which way an open-front coop faces, and that is simply incorrect (although of course well-meant) - this 'air cushion' business is not THAT complete. So I thought some folks might ought to take that into consideration before building something 'backwards' and discovering it has problems.

Peace,

Pat

 

[JackE]

Quote:
Against *what*?

It just seemed (perhaps I misread) that you were suggesting it does not matter which way an open-front coop faces, and that is simply incorrect (although of course well-meant) - this 'air cushion' business is not THAT complete. So I thought some folks might ought to take that into consideration before building something 'backwards' and discovering it has problems.

Peace,

Pat

Pat, I think we just have a misunderstanding here on what was posted. I was not saying you could just position a coop in any direction you feel without taking into consideration prevailing wind directions. If that's the impression I left, Then that is not what I intended. And, I guess I got the impression you were saying I was full of baloney. Believe me, I don't want to get into a P'in match with anybody. Sorry about the misunderstanding, Truce??
Jack

 

[Namble]

omg! I love your coop design! If I ever build a new coop it will be something very similar to this one!

 

[off-grid hen]

First of all, I would like to say that this topic is extremely interesting to me. I love how old-timers did things with common sense and ingenuity. Sometimes they came up with really smart and SIMPLE ways to combat old problems. That being said, sometimes the old timers made mistakes. I give this idea a LOT of merit.

When I mentioned insulation and drafts to 3 other women who have been keeping chickens here for more than 5 years, they looked at me like I was nuts. When I asked the meat and egg poultry farmer about where I should put roost bars in relation to the windows? Again with the "WTH are you talking about?" look. I asked her if she has had any issues with frostbite and she told me that one of her roosters with a big comb got frostbite once on the very tips of his comb. She told me to worry more about the sumer heat, because it can be hot and humid in the summer here. Then, just 2 days later- I see this thread on open-air coops. I think I'ma give it a try.

Now, If I were to consider building one of these open-air coops... I would have to do what common sense tells me regarding orientation of the building. (Not that Woods is wrong, but I did review it a bit and he does mention lay of the land, and I have hills on three sides of me, so I am quite sure this affects the weather patterns.)

Example: When It rains in the summer, I run around closing windows in my house, just like all of us do. I close the windows on the south side, and the west side. The rain almost always comes in those windows. My house faces almost due east, but slightly to the south. So my south side might be facing slightly southwest- which might be confusing me a bit. I almost never have to close my north-facing windows or my east-facing windows. Excluding crazy summer thunderstorms with lots of wind-direction changes and terrential rains.

The house I live in was built as a summer camp in the 1890's-well before the days of electricity, and was designed to maximize airflow. So then. In theory- I would face my open air side/window to the opposite side of this. OR am I better off hanging around many days in the winter to get a sample of which direction the precip. and wind come from? But don't I want the SUN to shine in from the southeast in the winter? Hmmm. I have just gotten myself more confused.

I think I will read the book in full instead of just skim it like I did on saturday.

GOOD thread.

EDIT: You know- I'm going to get a compass out later to see which direction my house actually faces. Now I'm curious.

Edit 2- Adirondack style lean-to's are designed with 3-side coverage and a slanted roof (slope facing prevailing winds) for shelter. Works well, I've camped in one before and didn't get wet.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I think you may be overthinking it

Unless you live in a very unusual site (although, of course, there ARE some very unusual sites in the world) in your region the prevailing winter storm winds are from W and N, and occasionally from the E but not as cold then. Therefore, unless your place is weird

, you would want an open-front coop facing generally S or SE. The *exact* way it faces is not highly crucial, just the *general* direction, you know? Since, I mean, weather comes from all different directions at one time or another anyhow

I think I will read the book in full instead of just skim it like I did on saturday.

Highly recommend! I find it extremely interesting because he does NOT just concentrate on what he himself has built, but gives a whole lot of examples (some really quite detailed) of what OTHERS were doing at the time, and how it worked for them, and various commentary on technical features and what works and doesn't and so forth. Very few books are written that way, with so much actual experience-based information packed into them, and I really like it! (Mind you I get the strong impression he is picking and choosing all his many 'satisfied-customer' type quotes... but, as I think I said above, his *overall point* still holds even if he maybe gets rollin' a bit fast in places

)

EDIT: You know- I'm going to get a compass out later to see which direction my house actually faces. Now I'm curious.

Compass is fine, but you can get a real close estimate by seeing where the sun falls thru your front windows at exactly noon (standard time -- that would be, what, 1 pm DST). The line of the shadows it makes thru your windows points basically due South. Perhaps not quite close enough for aircraft navigation but good enough for coop building anyhow <g>

Good luck, have fun,

Pat​

 

[off-grid hen]

I think you may be overthinking it

Unless you live in a very unusual site (although, of course, there ARE some very unusual sites in the world) in your region the prevailing winter storm winds are from W and N, and occasionally from the E but not as cold then. Therefore, unless your place is weird

,

I confused myself. XD

DH is swinging by an amish-built shed place and he's going to check out coops. If they don't look right to him, we'll build one. Thanks, Pat!


BTW, JackE: Are the dimensions to your coop somewhere in this thread? I can't remember. also: the pic of your hen looking out the door at the snow is beyond adorable. Reminds me of me after the blizzard last weekend.​

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Good luck finding a prefab coop that would even remotely be suitable for this style. For one thing it needs to be *at least* as deep as it is wide (preferably deeper), and the monitor style roof ( the two levels sloping opposite directions with a short vertical wall joining them with monitor windows in it -- which you won't find on prefabs) really is a pretty significant part of the design.

Build one. Then show us the purty pictures

Pat