Coop Ventilation: This is Exactly How Much Your Chickens Need - The Featherbrain (2024)

How much ventilation does a chicken coop need?

Ah, the million dollar question!

Here's the answer:

Chicken houses require much less ventilation in the cold months than in the warm months. A chicken coop needs about 3-4 square meters of ventilation in cold weather (including the swinging door) and in warm weather as much extra ventilation as possible, usually in the form of windows, vents and doors that can be opened when necessary.

To calculate how much ventilation you haveRealthe need can be difficult for novice chicken keepers. There's no hard and fast rule (despite what you may read elsewhere) - it can really vary.

Most ventilation estimates indicate a number so high that it is not possible to ventilate that much without creating dangerous winter drafts in your home.

In this article we will find out exactly how much ventilation is suitable for you. We'll quickly discuss the twelve simple variables to consider, and then I'll give you some examples from my own chicken coops (with photos!).

This way you can actually visualize what your stable ventilation should look like, where it should be placed and exactly how much ventilation you need for your setup.

Why do you need ventilation in your chicken coop?

If you're not entirely sure what ventilation is or why you need it, check out my companion article:Chicken coop ventilation 101: Ventilation made easy!

12 variables to determine how much ventilation your chicken coop needs

The table below summarizes the twelve variables you need to consider to determine how much ventilation your chicken coop needs. The variables are listed in the left column.

Take a moment to look at these variables and see if your backyard setup falls more into the middle column or the right column.

Let's take a closer look at the twelve variables and what they mean for you.

#1 Cages with organic bedding require more ventilation than cages with inorganic bedding.

What type of bedding will you use in your chicken coop?

If you use anything organic – straw, wood shavings, hemp, paper, etc. – you will have a lot more moisture and gas in your coop than if you use inorganic litter, i.e. WHERE.

Organic ground covers do not dry out moisture as well as sand, and they also provide a lot of organic material that pathogens can break down (create gases). This combination means that you will have more moisture, gas, odors and pathogens in the air of your chicken coop and therefore need more ventilation.

On the other hand, if you use a medium to coarse grained sand litter (my litter choice), you will need less ventilation in your cow. Sand dries chicken deposits quickly and does not support the growth of pathogens.

For the science behind this (including references), check out my article,The BEST Chicken Coop Bedding: Sand vs. straw versus pine shavings.

For advice on what type of sand to buy, where to get it and how to use it, see my article,Sand for chicken coop bedding: pros and cons and how to do it right.

And for information on the myth that all sand will make your chickens sick, see my article,Will All Sand Litter Kill Your Chickens? Silica and silicosis explained.

#2 The more often you change the litter or remove the feces, the less ventilation you need.

Most of the moisture, gases and pathogens in your home come from your chickens' litter. So if you change organic bedding often or remove feces from your bedding often, your need for ventilation will naturally decrease.

This is another reason why sand is a wonderful type of bedding: it is so easy to clean. You just clean up the poop. For more information on this topic, see my article,Sand for chicken coop bedding: pros and cons and how to do it right.

And if you are using an organic bed type, you may want to consider sprinkling somethingzeolite in it - this will help discourage the growth of pathogens and reduce gases.

#3 If you use stool planks under your sleeping areas, you will need less ventilation.

Litter boards (or boxes) are materials (usually plywood) that you place under your perches to catch your chickens' nighttime droppings.

In the photo below you can see what one of my stool boards looks like.

If you use stool boards, you can easily use onetape mes to scrape off the feces every dayemmer,and remove it from the garden.

If you use containers, you can fill them with some type of cat litter and simply scoop out the poop. Many chicken keepers use containers with sand orzeolite waste, and then they only use onecat litter scoopto remove the feces every morning.

This practice removes most of the chicken feces from your chickens, removing a significant amount of moisture, bacterial food, and gases (which are typically released by bacteria during the breakdown of feces and bedding).

#4 Coops in warm climates require more ventilation than coops in cold climates.

In warm weather, ventilation plays an additional role in cooling the garden. The more ventilation you have in your coop, the more air flow you have and the cooler your coop will be.

If your climate is warm year-round, consider an open wall. This is a house where one or more walls (or parts of walls) are made ofhardwaredoek,your chicken coop therefore has a very large amount of ventilation. You can see some examples in the images below:

And if you get occasional storms or bad weather, design your house so that you can cover the open walls with plywood sheets or with astrong tarpaulinas requested. But when cladding the walls, make sure you leave space at the top to allow moisture and gas to drain.

I also recommend using fans in the garden in warm climates. For more information on using fans for ventilation, see my article,Chicken coop ventilation 101: Ventilation made easy!

#5 If your nighttime temperatures remain high in the summer, your chickens will need more ventilation.

And fans... Be sure to think about fans here...

Going 24/7 without ever cooling down is incredibly hard on your chickens. In fact, it's a recipe for heatstroke. If the weather never cools, make sure your home has as much ventilation as possible and add fans to help your girls cool down.

For more ideas on adding ventilation, see my article,Chicken coop ventilation: 21 design ideas with pictures.

#6 Coops that are in the sun need more ventilation in warm weather.

As a chicken keeper living in southern Idaho where trees are hard to find, my chickens have absolutely no cover. This means that the hot sun shines on them all day in the summer. Insulation helps a lot to keep my copper plates from going up in flames, but my copper plates still get hotter than shaded copper plates.

If you cannot place your chicken coop in the shadeInWhere you live you get summer, in the summer you need good ventilation to keep your house sufficiently cool. The more airflow you can get, the better.

#7 Coops in locations with high humidity require more ventilation.

Again, one of the main reasons farmers need ventilation is to remove moisture. In humid places, the flow of fresh air is even more important. Humidity makes it harder for chickens to cool off in the heat, and humidity increases your chickens' risk of frostbite in the cold.

#8 The more chickens you have per square meter of space, the more ventilation you need.

The more chickens you pack into a small space, the more concentrated the moisture is produced.

Not sure how much space you need for your chickens? See my article,How big should your chicken coop be?

#9 The higher your ceiling, the less ventilation you need.

You often see ventilation estimates based on square footage in the loft. For example, you may have come across the recommendation of '1 square meter of ventilation per 10 square meters of floor space'. However, these recommendations always take into account the height of the garden (and virtually every other variable listed here)

If your chicken coop has a higher ceiling, like a typical walk-in coop, the moisture and unwanted gases in the air will be less concentrated and will tend to rise to the ceiling above your chickens' heads. (And for this reason, it's a good idea to have a vent in or near your attic.)

On the other hand, if your coop has a low ceiling (not far above your chickens' heads), the stale air will be more concentrated and much closer to your chickens. You will definitely need a vent large enough to allow this air to escape. immediately through, in or near the ceiling.

There are several types of vents you can add - for ideas see my article,Chicken coop ventilation: 21 design ideas with pictures.

And if your ceiling is low, definitely consider putting one upSweeter warmerabout the residual bars in the cold months. This helps protect your chicks from cold drafts that can come from the vents not far above their heads. It also protects them from frostbite, which is unfortunately common with backyard chickens.

The photo below shows the interior of my smallest house on a cold day. You can see some of my chickens, Dolly and Champ, underneath theirsSweeter warmer.

Later in this post I will explain exactly how much ventilation the hutch in the photo above has.

#10 The more time your chickens spend in the coop, the more ventilation they need.

If you have a small run or one that is not protected from the elements, your chickens may spend a lot more time in the coop.

And what are they doing in there? Pooping and breathing everywhere, of course - hence the need for more ventilation.

#11 Larger breeds need more ventilation than smaller breeds.

Larger breeds naturally eat, poop and breathe more and will therefore have greater ventilation needs in the same amount of space.

#12 Heat-intolerant varieties require more ventilation than heat-tolerant varieties.

Your heat-intolerant breeds, such asWyandottes InOrpingtons,will need all the help they can get during the summer months. They need a lot of airflow, fans think again.

Here's how to use these 12 variables to determine how much ventilation your chickens need.

Most of these variables are for informational purposes: if you get a lot of variables in the middle column you'll want to make sure you vent heavier, while if you get a lot of variables in the right column you might want to go lighter.

The absolute most important variables are those related to heat. If you live in a warm climate: ventilate, ventilate, ventilate.

What if you live in a climate with hot summers?Incold winters?

Most people live in a climate where it is both hot and cold, myself included. This means that your home has different ventilation needs in summer than in winter.

Summer moves are good. Winter draft is bad.

This summer, you'll want to keep as many vents and windows open as possible – and even doors if you have a way to do so safely. In many places you also need to add fans.

And then in winter you have to close your windows and extra ventilation openings. You will need to ensure that the only ventilation in your chicken coop are vents located well above your chickens' heads and the hatch door.

Basically, you need to model your chicken coop for controllable ventilation. For more information on this topic, see my article,Chicken coop ventilation 101: Ventilation made easy!

Chicken coop ventilation: let's talk numbers!

I went out this morning and measured all the ventilation in my largest and smallest chicken coop and took some pictures so you can get real numbers and see what those numbers actually look like in a chicken coop.

Ventilation for a walk-in chicken coop of 3.5 x 3 meters with 25 chickens

Below is a photo of my 10'x10' walk-in chicken coop.

This chicken coop has two gable openings on opposite walls with an area of ​​4.69 square meters each - you can see one of them in the photo above.

The chicken coop has two windows with a ventilation area of ​​1.69 square meters each (you can see one in the photo above) and a swing door of 1.25 square meters. The human door, if I could leave it open, is 19.11 square feet.

You can see these figures summarized in the table below.

Winter ventilation for a 10'x10' chicken coop

How much ventilation will it ultimately be? Well, in winter I close the windows and close one of the facade openings. Yes, in the winter months the second facade flap is completely unnecessary. The coop even feels a bit drafty when open, despite being well above the chickens' heads.

So my winter ventilation is a total of 5.94 square meters - the size of the expansion hole door plus the size of a gable opening.

That's only 0.24 square meters/kip.

And honestly, I think the house would do just fine with less. There is sufficient airflow. The cup is dry and there is absolutely no odor - except early in the morning, when fresh manure from 25 chickens has been on the spreaders all night. But as soon as I scrape it off, the garden is fresh.

I think I just installed two of themValves of 1 square meteron opposite walls it would have been sufficient - and this corresponds to only 0.13 square meters/kip.

So if you see ventilation everywhere, you estimate that you need at least 1 square meter of ventilation per chicken (and that's not even counting the swinging door!), it's completely fake - or at least in winter, in collaboration with good management.

And by good management I mean that your house is no less than 3-4 square meters/chicken, and that you remove the droppings regularly - either by scooping it out of the sand or by replacing your organic bedding.

And what about the estimate of 1 square meter of ventilation per 10 square meters of floor space? Also fake. In the case of this coop, I only have 0.59 square feet of ventilation for every 10 square feet of floor space.

Summer ventilation for a 10'x10' chicken coop

And what about in the summer? Well, for summer ventilation I open both facade openings, both windows and the swinging door. This corresponds to 14 square meters of total ventilation or0.56 square feet/kip.

However, I wish I had more ventilation in the summer months just because the house gets warmer than I like sitting out in the sun like that. So I'll add oneDeWalt battery powered leaf blower in the summer to the chicken coop.

Moreover, the nights here cool down considerably. If they didn't, I'd add even more fans.

And if I had to, I could leave the human door to this big house open if I added onesecurely lockedscreen door covered withhardware clothto keep predators out at night. This would add an additional 19.11 square meters of ventilation, for a total of 1.3 square meters per room kip.

Ventilation for a 4'x4' raised house with 4 chickens

Below is a photo of my 4'x4' raised chicken coop.

This chicken coop has two vents just under the roof (on either side of the chicken coop). I call these wall-roof slit valves. They are simply spaces between the ceiling and the top of the wall, and they are covered byhardware cloth.You can see one in the photo above – it starts at the top of the door, although you can't see the hardware cloth from this angle.

But you can see the hardware cloth on the close-ups of the vent below.

These vents each have an area of ​​1.39 square meters. The chicken coop has a window with a ventilation area of ​​0.92 square meters and an outdoor area of ​​0.73 square meters. If I could leave it open, the human door is 9.44 square meters.

You can see these figures summarized in the table below.

Winter ventilation for 4'x4' chicken coop

In winter, this chicken coop is ventilated by the two wall skylights and the folding door, a total of 3.71 square meters of ventilation.

That is approximately 0.93 square meters per chicken.

This is certainly enough - I have never had any problems with moisture or gases in this coop. You may be thinking: that's pretty close to the estimate of 1 square meter per piece of chicken. But remember: this estimate does not include the pop door. I count the swinging door as ventilation.

Summer ventilation for 4'x4' chicken coop

In the summer I also leave the window open, so that the chicken coop has a total ventilation area of ​​4.63 square meters. That is 1.16 square meters per chicken.

Once again it has proven that this is more than sufficient. (Although I wouldn't complain if there were more - you really can't have too much ventilation in the heat.)

Although my husband built this house to house four chickens, one summer I ended up with seven chickens in it: six hens and a rooster. The chickens originally lived in two cages of this size, but then chose to put them in one coop together, much to their chagrin. (Yes, they have a brand new big house now.)

But that summer with 7 chickens in the yard, ventilation was only 0.63 square meters per chicken, including the pop door. And yet it was enough!

You can see the ventilation figures I discussed here summarized below - for both the large and small cages:

*Although this hutch has a total of 5.9 m² of ventilation, this hutch feels over-ventilated - it is very cold with a lot of airflow. If I could go back in time, I would install facade vents of 1 square meter each instead of 4.69 square meters each, which would reduce the total winter ventilation to 3.25 square meters.

You can see in the table above that I have divided the ventilation into square meters per chicken and also into square meters per chicken. 10 square meters of floor space.

I did this because you always hear that you need '1 square meter of ventilation per chicken' or '1 square meter of ventilation per 10 square meters of floor space'. This table shows how inaccurate and useless these rules of thumb really are.

And again, remember that I could greatly increase ventilation in the summer if I needed to, by leaving (and adding) the man doors open.hardware clothto keep predators out). So remember that for your chicken coop. And of course there are always fans.

Do swing doors count as ventilation?

Yes absolutely. I'm sure you noticed that I counted pop doors in all my measurements above.

As long as your swing doors are not covered by curtains, swing doors play a huge role in bringing fresh air into your chicken coop. Even if you normally close them at night, they still bring in huge amounts of air throughout the day.

What does it all mean to you? Let's put it together.

This is what it all means to you. Chicken coop ventilation doesn't have to be complicated. If you live in a warm climate, ventilate as much as possible and use fans.

Do not take photos for a specific square meter of ventilation per chicken or per floor space. Just ventilate as much as possible while ensuring your chickens are protected from the elements and predators.

If you live in a cold climate, make sure you only have ventilation high above your chickens' heads (plus the swing door - which you can leave open or cover with curtains).

And always provide some cross ventilation. For example, if you leave your swing door uncovered during the day, fresh air comes in and the stale air goes out through the opening near the roof. It's cross ventilation.

Or in the case of my little chicken coop pictured above. The wall-roof gap on the low side of the roof ventilates crosswise with the wall-roof gap on the high (opposite) side of the roof. Air flows into the coop from one side and out the other, carrying with it the gases and moisture from the house.

Basically, make sure you have vents that differ in vertical placement (such as a swinging door near the floor and a vent near the ceiling).ofsideways (such as two vents on either side of your chicken coop). Either of these arrangements will provide you with cross ventilation.

And of course, if you live in a mixed climate – both cold and warm weather – make sure you have plenty of controllable ventilation, such as vents and windows that you can open and close as the weather dictates.

You can see this advice summarized in the table below:

And finally: keep a clean house. Get that sh*t out of there. Without a lot of poop in your cage, there is only a limited amount of moisture and gas left that you need to ventilate at all.

And if for some reason you know youwill notIf you run a clean chicken coop, you will need more ventilation. But ask yourself: why don't you have a clean house?

How can you be sure if your chicken coop has adequate ventilation?

Simple: you test it.

Ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. Is there condensation in your home?

2. Does your chicken coop have damp spots anywhere?

3. Does your house smell?

If you answered no to all three of these questions, congratulations! Your house is well ventilated!

If you answer yes to the first question, it could mean that you don't have enough ventilation, but if the condensation is on the roof, it could also mean that you just need to insulate your roof.

And if you see damp spots, first make sure there are no leaks and no precipitation is coming in through your vents. These are not ventilation problems; they are construction problems. And if you need ideas on how to prevent fallout from getting into your vents, check out my article:Chicken coop ventilation 101: Ventilation made easy!

And don't forget that your coop may smell like a chicken carcass in the morning before you've had a chance to clean your litter box (or pick the poop out of your bedding if you don't have a litter box). This is completely normal: ventilation or not, fresh feces stinks.

But if your house continues to smell unpleasant, or smells like ammonia (or other gases for that matter), you either don't have enough ventilation or you need to change your bedding immediately. Sometimes both.

What should you do if your chicken coop is not adequately ventilated?

Add some more!

Not sure how? See my other articles on ventilation for ideas and tips:

• Chicken coop ventilation 101: Ventilation made easy!

• Chicken coop ventilation: 21 design ideas with pictures

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