Hello, humans. I'm Repecka and I'm here to teach you about coop ventilation.
As you know, birds have very delicate respiratory systems. They could have used hens down in those coal mines but even the tiniest bantams were too big for those little cages. So one of the best ways to keep us healthy is to give us plenty of fresh air.
Unfortunately, we're also sensitive to drafts. Our feathers are very, very good at keeping us warm by trapping air (which also makes us sensitive to heat), but if they get ruffled up by the wind we might as well be naked.
So, how do you make sure your coop has plenty of fresh air, no drafts, and doesn't get too hot? The solution is to put the ventilation in the right place.
But what does that mean? And how much ventilation is enough?
The answer depends a lot on where you live. The Usual Guideline is 1 square foot of ventilation per adult, standard-size hen, but that's just an average. What works for me here in hot, humid North Carolina summers isn't going to be right for my sister Peckelope in upstate New York's bitter-cold winters or my cousin Elizapeck in Minnesota where temperatures are as hot as mine in the summer and as cold as Peckelope's in the winter.
What you want is to keep adding ventilation until it's no hotter inside than out and rearrange your vents until there's no drafts blowing on the roost.
So, how?
People often think that it looks good to have windows right in the middle of the wall and to have them the same on both sides of the coop. That can be nice on a steamy hot summer night but even in my kind of winter that gets cold!
Sometimes people want to put in a wire floor to let the poop drop through so they don't have to shovel. But that gets cold too.
On the other hand, knowing that drafts are bad, some people over-correct and close off too much ventilation. Then the coop gets too hot and we layers might as well be broilers on a spit!
But if you put plenty of ventilation up by the roof over our heads we can be comfortable with fresh air to breathe and no wind ruffling our feathers no matter what the weather is like outside.
Of course there's different ways to build a coop and getting the ventilation right looks different for each kind. Here in what my owner calls "The Steamy Southeast" it's HOT in the summer and never really gets cold-cold in the winter. So I live in an Open Air coop that never gets stuffy or hot because the air moving under the roof carries the heat away. In the winter my owner puts up a tarp to block a little more wind from our roost in case there's a storm.
Peckelope's owner built her a Wood's Fresh Air Coop. In the summer it's got almost as much ventilation as mine does because of the big half-monitor on the roof and the windows but her roost is a little more protected since her storms are colder.
But in the winter all the windows except for the ones in front are closed and it stays cozy without getting stuffy:
Elizapeck has the best -- or the worst -- of both worlds when it comes to weather so her coop has to be flexible. Her owner put in soffit vents with big roof overhangs so that the snow can't get in and big windows with top-hinged covers to adjust as the seasons change. It can be all open, all closed, or somewhere in the middle.
There you go. Plenty of clean, fresh air makes for happy, healthy chickens. Any questions?
This is where I live:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/large-open-air-coop-in-central-nc.1443812/#post-23969601
And here are some other coops I'd be happy to live in:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-little-monitor-coop.76275/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/dallas-urban-coop-single-slope-design.72422/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/my-barn-red-and-white-coop-complete-build-photos.75458/
https://countryliving.blog/2021/06/15/my-coop/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/jens-hens-a-southern-texas-coop.75707/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/the-mulligan.74743/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/aarts-coop-page.65912/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...-kd-knock-down-10-by-16-coop-pictorial.75421/
