I have to admit that I’ve
been guilty of passing on this bit of chicken-coop-building advice that
you see in many books and on many websites:
well-ventilated but doesn’t create drafts.”
One of my friends called
me on it, and I realized I didn’t really know what I meant any more
than the other authors did.
So I started pondering,
and here’s what I concluded:
- The ventilation is supposed to keep moisture from buiding up in
the coop and to keep smells down. (With deep
bedding, smells should be much less of a problem.) - Drafts are breezes at chicken-level, especially where they’re
roosting at night.
The
solution to providing ventilation without drafts? Get the air
moving up high, but enclose the roosting area so chickens are in a
still-air zone at night.
We’ve had success
overwintering chickens in very open tractors here in zone 6 with a
simple carpet curtain that encloses 75% of the roosting area.
Meanwhile, the drawing at the top of this post follows the tips in Small-Scale
Livestock Farming
— provide ventilate in the peak of the coop and/or windows that open
in and down.
One of these days I’ll
get around to reading Fresh-Air
Poultry Houses,
which is supposed to be the final word on this topic. Until then,
do you have any extra tips to add for draft-free coop ventilation?
