and Ventilation
Light is essential to chickens’ health and happiness. Natural lighting is better than bulbs and lamps, but if you want your hens to lay year-round, you must wire your coop and install fixtures.
Sliding windows work best for lighting and ventilation because chickens can’t roost on them when they’re open. Every window must be tightly screened, even if your chickens can’t fly. If predators can wriggle their way around or through those screens, they will. You’ll need ½- to ¾-inch galvanized mesh to keep wee beasties, such as weasels and mink, at bay.
If you live in frigid winter climes, large south-side windows are a must; they admit lots of winter light and radiant heat. In general, allow at least 1 square foot of window for each 10 square feet of floor space. If you live where temperatures rarely dip below freezing, install even more windows. It’s hard to let in too much light.
Extra windows also create cooling, healthful cross-ventilation when summer heat is an issue. Install the extra windows on your coop’s north wall and possibly the east one, too. Your coop must be properly ventilated. Chickens exhale up to thirty-five times per minute, releasing vast amounts of heat, moisture, and carbon dioxide into their environment.
Faulty coop ventilation quickly leads to respiratory distress. Where large windows (and lots of them) aren’t possible, saw 6-inch circular or 2-by-6-inch rectangular ventilation openings high along one or more nonwindowed walls. Unplug these vents when extra air is needed, and close them tightly when it’s frigid outside. Chickens can weather considerable heat or cold when their housing is dry and draft-free, but they don’t do well in smelly, damp conditions. If your nose smells ammonia as you enter or open your coop, it is not adequately ventilated. Fix this problem immediately.
Insulation
To get your chickens through winters as unforgiving as those in northern Minnesota, their coop must be well insulated. If money is scarce, you can insulate only the coop’s north wall and bank outside by using hay or straw bales stacked at least two deep. Another trick: bank snow up against the coop by shoveling or pushing it as far up the sides as you can. If it’s still too cold inside the coop, you’ll need a heat lamp. But remember: fallen heat lamps can, and often do, spark fires, so install it in a reasonably safe location and use it only when really needed.
Chickens can die in temperatures higher than 95° Fahrenheit. Situate your coop and outdoor enclosures in partial shade—or plant vegetation around your chickens’ lodgings to partially shade it. Insulation helps repel daytime heat, and fans generate badly needed airflow. Opt for light-colored or corrugated metal roofing and paint external surfaces a matte white color to reflect the heat. Allow additional space for each of your birds; overcrowding leads to higher indoor temperatures and humidity.
Flooring
Your coop’s floor may be constructed of concrete, wood, or plain old dirt. Concrete is rodent-proof and easy to clean, but it’s comparatively expensive. Wood must be elevated on piers or blocks; it looks nice, but it can be hard to clean and periodically needs replacing. Well-drained dirt floors work fine. However, if a dirt floor is poorly drained or allowed to become mucky, you’ll have a sheer disaster on your hands.
Deep bedding nicely insulates a coop floor, it is simple, and it works! For the best-bet deep-bedding system, blanket your floor of choice with a cushy layer of absorbent material to keep things tidy and fresh. Chopped straw (wheat straw is best) or wood shavings are ideal, and rice or peanut hulls, sawdust, dry leaves, and shredded paper work well, too. Line the floor 8–10 inches deep; remove messes and add more material when necessary. Once or twice a year, strip everything back to floor level and start again.
Strips of wood or molding give the chickens traction on a ramp.
Your Coop: Basic Furnishings
Basic coop furnishings include roosts, nest boxes for laying hens, feeders, and watering stations. Roosts are the elevated poles or boards on which chickens prefer to sleep. Roosting helps them feel safer at night, making these perches a must if you want happy hens. Nesting boxes are a necessity—unless you like going on egg hunts or prefer your eggs precracked. You’ll also need more than one set of well-placed waterers and feeders.
Roosts
In the winter, roosted birds fluff their feathers and cover their toes; they tend to stay warmer that way. A roost can be as simple as an old wooden ladder propped against a chicken coop’s inner wall and tacked to the wall at the top. Place it at enough of an angle so that birds settled on one rung don’t poop on flockmates roosting on rungs below.
If you build traditional stair-stepped roosts for your birds, set the bottom perch about 2 feet from the floor and set higher rungs an additional foot apart. Two-by-two boards with rounded edges make ideal roosts for full-size chickens, and 1-inch rounded boards or 1-inch dowel rods are fine for bantams. Tree branches of the same diameters make fine roost rails, too. Don’t use plastic or metal perches; chickens require textured perches that their feet can easily grip. Allow 10 inches of perch space for each heavy-breed chicken in the coop; provide 8 inches and 6 inches for light breeds and bantams, respectively.
Wherever you place your roosts, make certain that sleeping chickens won’t be perched in cross-drafts. Check frequently and move the roosts if necessary.
Nesting Boxes
Unless you provide nesting boxes, free-range hens will sneak off to lay in nooks and crannies, and you may never find the eggs! Confined hens will plop eggs out wherever they can, which can result in poop-splotched, cracked eggs. Specially designed nesting boxes with slanted tops and perches in front work best, but any sturdy cubicle with a top, a bottom, three enclosed sides, and bedding inside will do nicely.
Make sure the box is larger than the chicken. A 14-inch wooden cube with one open side makes an ideal nesting box for a full-size hen; a 12-inch cube accommodates bantams with ease. Leave the top off in steamy summer weather.
If you use a regular box, attach a 3–4-inch lip across the bottom front to keep bedding and eggs from spilling out. Mount the unit 2 feet from the floor in the darkest corner of the coop. Provide one nesting box for every four or five hens.
Feeders and Waterers
Place at least two sets of commercially made feeders and waterers in every coop and locate each set as far from the others as you can to prevent guarding by high-ranking flock members. Instead of setting units on the floor, install them so the bottoms of the waterers and the top lips of the feeders are level with the smallest birds’ backs. They’ll stay cleaner that way, and your chickens will waste less food. Be sure to provide one standard hanging tube-style feeder per twenty-five chickens. If you prefer trough feeders, allow 4 inches of dining space per bird when deciding what size to purchase.
| The Comforts of Home Be sure to provide a shaded area for your flock in the outdoor run. No trees? Stretch a tarp across one corner and hook it to the fence with bungee cords. Chickens enjoy lounging under outdoor shelters when it rains. So, if you leave the tarp up when it rains, poke a few holes in it for drainage—just don’t poke holes near the center, where your birds gather. While you’re at it, add a sand pit for dust bathing as well. |
Outdoor Runs: Sunshine and Fresh Air
Another way to keep
