How much ventilation

carolb0101

carolb0101

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Co Mayo, Ireland
The new coop I've bought does not have enough ventilation. There is a large 'hole' in the door, which I'm going to cover over as there will be a draught directly on the perch (pointed out by other members on a different thread).

My OH has drilled 6 small holes in each apex. Will this be enough?
 
Hi Carolb. Have just checked out both of the coops I build where I have put in vents each end or side with sliding covers. The new ones I thought looked a bit small and were enlarged 20mm. They both work out as exactly the same ratio to the floor area -5%. So that's 5% at each end. Too much on a windy cold night but not enough perhaps on a still, hot, Summer night. Hence the sliding covers.
 
I get a bit paranoid on the subject of ventilation since I lost my silver laced dotte some time ago with a respiratory problem. The ventilation on my coop
Is on one side only at the top and I recently increased the size of the vent to about 65cm long x 10cm high. Then coop is just under a metre square cube. So far so good but I will review it when the cold weather sets in.
 
Chris - How many and what diameter are your holes?

Bantiekeeper - does yours have a sliding cover (I have no chooks yet - but I want 3 Laced Wyandottes, I think they are lovely).
 
They are rectangular Carolb. Fitted with 12mm weldmesh on the inside the smaller coop (1.2m x 0.8m floor)measures 300mm x 180mm. The larger coop (1.7m x 1.1m floor) measures 400mm x 250mm -see the thread 'Our Mobile Coops'. We have little rearers (0.8m x 0.6m floor) which are inadiquate being just 90mm x 200mm on one side only but with a very secure run screwed onto them I can leave the pop-hole open. There are two other coops with the apex of the roof having the vents in. I posted the pallet built blue coop recently somewhere and we have a small one I made mobile which has about 10% ventillation right across the perch. On that one I block half of the vents in Winter and when it's really bad weather block all of one end up with a perspex sheet.
 
Chris - I found the topic with the photo of the blue coop.

Do you have the same amount of ventilation at the rear as you have at the front?
 
Yes, exactly the same. But in Winter I block the whole of one end off with Perspex -the end you can see which is West facing (because the perch is just below it). All the coops with sliding vents are set to half open or windward side is closed completely and other side is fully open -but it's quite exposed here. If the wind isn't bad they should be left open, as long as the draught isn't across the perches. Some people leave their chickens outside in Winter and they are fine if the area is secure and sheltered from wind. So you can't have too much ventillation Carolb, only too little and then sick birds as Bantiekeeper.
 
Hi carolb, at the moment I do not have any sliding closures but I will add this facility later in the year as the weather changes. The chooks perches are
well down in the coop so they are not exposed to draughts. All my bantams are Wyandottes. I have a black (Biddy), buff (Vi), columbian (Maggie)
partridge(Connie) and buff laced (Maisie). In a few weeks time a silver laced and a gold laced will be joining us! Can't wait, they are a joy to own. :)
 
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