Yet ANOTEHR vent / coop question - coop w/only 2 exterior walls???

[jenkassai]

We are designing our coop. We have an old, grungy building at the back part of our fenced yard area. We are talking about cleaning out one of the corner rooms in that building (shack!!) and converting it to a coop with an attached yard (they will be let out to range when we are home, but confined to their yard when we are at work). I think the room is about 8 x 16, which is VERY roomy for my 9 regular chicks and one bantam (gee, I think it actually leaves me room for an addition or two!). Anyways, I had in my mind a stand alone building with plenty of ventilation, windows on all the walls, etc. Now, I will only have two exterior walls. I am trying to picture how we will get enough ventilation and cross breeze with only two exterior walls. I am allowed to do windows and a people door and obviously a pop-door, and hubby says we can do roof vents. Do you think the two exterior walls and roof vents will be enough area for ventilation?? Any one else with a coop that has only two exposed walls? I may be able to put a screen door on the far opposite exterior wall, but not sure if that is an option yet and not sure it would do any good for the coop area as it would be at least 15 feet away. If I am REALLY convinced it won't work, I think I can convince hubby we need to go with the stand alone building, but this would save a TON of money (that I could use for niceties like a roof-covered area of chicken yard, etc), not to mention time and work, and with hubby starting to work 5 10 hr days plus 8 on Saturday, time will be in short supply!

Thx!!!

 

[jinxschuh]

We built our chicken room in an existing barn and only have 2 exterior walls. Currently there is venting across the top of both interior walls and the only opening on the exterior walls is the chicken access door. So far it hasn't seemed to be a problem. I have an automatic fly sprayer out in a different part of the barn so it stays pretty fly free and the barn walls are cement so it seems to stay cool as it collects the cool air at night. We got into triple digits yesterday for our high and it still seemed comfortable in there even with out the vents. I suppose the cooling of the cement walls is a big plus, but my husband wants to add one of those self running vents in the barn roof and thinks that it will draw enough air from through out the barn even through the hay loft to be enough venting...? I think it will just be a matter of testing. Maybe you could put a thermometer in there to see how hot it gets and just make adjustments as necessary.

 

[bryan99705]

You don't say where your'e at but cross ventilation is not required, just vents high for the heat to go out. This exit of hot air will draw cool air in thru available cracks and the chickens door. What you are fighting is some people put a box with no air movement out and can't figure out why their birds die.
If you are in a cold climate, put a gable vent in and mount the roost bar on the other side of the coop so the moisture and ammonia fumes can vent out but when the cold comes in thru the same vent, it doesn't drop onto the birds.
If you re in a hot climate, peel a wall to the studs and wire the whole thing.

Remember, a coop is a dark, weather shelter to roost in, everything else is just chicken gravy!