There are many factors to a well planned chicken house and one of the most important is ventilation. Chickens produce a lot of moisture, ammonia and heat. Without proper air circulation in your coop they may get sick or even die. Below you have 3 reasons why you should spend more time on this issue.
1. It removes dampness and humidity.
If you supply your chicken house plan with good ventilation sources, it will help to decrease the humidity and dumpiness in it. The air in your coop gets moist because your hens are constantly breathing out water vapor. This is a natural process and the same principle applies to humans. Just try breathing on a window or a mirror, and it will fog up. If you live in a very cold climate and interior of your chicken house is very humid, your chickens may suffer from frostbite and respiratory diseases.
2. It removes ammonia fumes.
As you may have notice chickens do not pee, they only poo. Their poo contains a high concentration of uric acid, which helps them to save water. However, uric acid left in contact with oxygen transforms into ammonia – a highly toxic substance that is dangerous for health of your chickens.
3. Temperature control in summer.
This reason to include ventilation inside your chicken house plan is quite obvious but, it is still worth mentioning. Providing enough fresh, cold air will help to decrease the temperatures inside your coop. If you expose your chickens to temperature over 90 degrees of Fahrenheit, there is a great probability your chickens will start to experience serious health problems. And if the heat keeps raising, they may die.
How to ventilate your chicken house
1. Passive Ventilation
Passive ventilation is the most natural and effective type of ventilation for a small chicken house plan. This method is cheap and easy to implement. All you need are some holes, a window or a special ventilation slot. This method takes advantage of the natural tendency of hot air to rise as well as winds.
2. Mechanical Ventilation
Next method you can use to ventilate your chicken house plan is by including mechanical devices that will suck the air out of your coop. It is the best solution if you plan on build a very large construction that, will have to accommodate many chickens.
Right about now you should be wondering how much ventilation does your chicken house plan need. The answer is simple, as much as you can provide. Chickens can withhold very low temperatures so you don’t have to worry about that. My advice is to cut as many holes in your coop as you can, preferably ones that will be easy to cover when the temperatures get a bit too low.
Another thing you should avoid are drafts. You want fresh air not wind gusts aimed at your chickens. Therefore, it is a good idea to build ventilation holes that can be easily covered if there is a need for it.
