Ventilation vs Circulation in Backyard Chicken Coops
Somehow along the way, the big talk on social media is how important it is to have ventilation in the chicken coop.
Not that important!
What is more important is circulation in the heat of summer.
Lets start with ventilation:
Ventilation is important, yes but for the big commercial poultry industries, housing thousands of birds in the huge industrial buildings. They need the big fans sucking out the ammonia and bring the clean air in as it is unhealthy for the birds and can cause respiratory diseases.
Backyard chicken keepers do not have thousands of chickens in their coops and are not kept in the coop 24/7. They generally have a run attached and can leave the chicken coop. In addition, the coop isn't completely sealed up during the day as the pop door would be open, letting in air.
We also keep our chicken coops clean and waste removed daily by having systems in place to manage the waste by means of droppings boards under roosts. If you don't have droppings boards, you have no idea how easy it is to maintain a clean, dry coop in 2 minutes of your time daily.
Droppings contain 80% moisture and are accumulated overnight from the chickens while roosting.
Unless you do the Deep Litter Method which I would not recommend, (I will write a post on that subject as well) You are removing the droppings and the moisture with it.
As far as respiratory moisture from the chickens breathing, most of us don't have that many chickens crammed in a coop to make that an issue.
The litter you use makes a difference as well, I use sand for litter. Chickens do not need bedding, they roost, they do not sleep on the floor. If you are worried about needing a substrate like shavings, straw or the deep litter method to help keep them warm, it won't. Straw is used for livestock, as the straw helps to keep them warm when they lay on it. The air inside the straw warms from the body heat of the animal and in turns helps keep the animal warm.
Chickens keep themselves warm with a high body temperature of 107 degrees and are wearing down jackets. You just need to provide them with dry and draft free and they will do the rest. The reason for importance of draft free, chickens keep warm by fluffing up their feathers away from their body, they trap that air between their skin and feathers. If a cold breeze was to ruffle their feathers, they would be robbed of all the warm air they have generated to help keep them warm.
It would be the same idea for us, we are warm under a blanket, someone comes along and lifts the blanket off you. You've just lost all the warm air underneath.
Lets talk about the importance of litter in a coop for a moment.
Sand has a high thermal mass which means it keeps the coop cooler in the summer time and warmer in the winter, roughly about a 2 degree difference both summer and winter. Sand also reduces the risk of frostbite and does not retain moisture and does not decay or degrade inside the coop, like other substrates used.
Sand for litter makes it possible that ventilation not so necessary.
The purpose of litter is to manage waste.
Circulation:
Why circulation is more important than ventilation?
Picture yourself on one of those really hot nights in the summer time where the temperature hardly drops overnight. Except you are in a chicken coop.
Does this chicken coop have windows? Better yet, does this chicken coop have more than one window and do they open?
One, even two windows in a chicken coop is not sufficient. The best designed chicken coop would have windows on all four sides.
That is where the chickens will get the best air circulation. Chickens are not built for the heat, they are more suited for winter. You can not base how you perceive the cold temperatures the same way chickens do. They are built totally different than us.
Their body temperature is 10 degrees warmer than ours and they are wrapped in down jackets. They can not remove those down jackets when it's hot.
Can you picture yourself in that chicken coop on a hot summer night wrapped in a down jacket?
If you do not have sufficient window circulation in your chicken coop, you can cut out a window with a reciprocating saw and make windows, put some hinges on one side to open and close and cover the opening with hardware cloth.
At the very least hang a fan in the corner of the coop to provide some type of airflow.
Chickens can die in a hot coop, as they do not have sweat glands either. This could possibly be that time when a chicken owner loses his/her chickens overnight. Goes out in the morning to let out the chickens and come to find one or two have passed over night. That is generally the result of the chickens being obese. Its called Fatty Liver Disease.
When chickens are fed too many treats and extras, even healthy extras, fat is accumulated around the liver. Over time fat is deposited in the liver and causes the liver to lose its structural strength and become enlarged. Once this occurs, the chicken can hemorrhage from the liver and can die.
Additionally, Fatty liver Disease is the leading noninfectious cause of death in backyard chickens.
If you have any questions on this post, please feel free to leave it in the comment section below.