Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (17 page)

Given a well-maintained yard, birds that spend most of their time outdoors, coming in mainly at night to roost, do quite nicely with less space. To encourage chickens to spend most of their daytime hours outdoors, even in poor weather, give them a covered area adjoining the coop where they can loll out of rain, wind, and sun. Encouraging your chickens to stay out in the fresh air has two advantages: they will be healthier, and their shelter will stay clean longer.

A shelter needs both a people-size door and a chicken-size door. You’ll use the people-size door to feed and water your chickens, check on their welfare, collect eggs if the nests are inside the shelter, and periodically clean out the bedding and droppings. The people-size door should be of standard size so you don’t bump your head every time you go in and out and so you can easily pitch soiled bedding from the shelter into a wheelbarrow or front-end loader outside the door.

In the summer we use a screen door on which we replaced the window screen wire with half-inch hardware cloth. The screen door improves ventilation, and the hardware cloth is tougher than the original screen, keeping chickens and predators each on their own side.

The chicken-size door is called a
pop hole
. Chickens love to sit on the pop-hole ledge, surveying the outside world. When one chicken is occupying that perch, none of the others can get in or out. For that reason a range or pasture shelter often has a wide pop hole so the birds can quickly enter the shelter in case of an aerial attack. But a single-chicken pop hole reduces drafts, keeps out large dogs and small goats, and may easily be set up to close automatically at nightfall and open at dawn.

A pop hole is made by cutting a flap into the wall and hinging the flap at the bottom so it opens downward as a ramp for the birds to get in and out. A good size single-chicken pop hole is 10 inches wide by 13 inches high (25 by 33 cm); for really large chickens 12 by 14 (30 by 35 cm) would be better. With an automatically closing door, you have to size the opening to fit the mechanism. If you
don’t have automatic closure, the flap needs a secure latch you can fasten shut to exclude predators after your chickens have gone to roost in the evening.

Our chickens aren’t always ready to go in when we do evening chores, and we’re not always timely about letting them out in the early morning, so we use pop-hole doors that close and open automatically. You can find suppliers and ideas for homemade variations on the Internet by doing a “chicken door” keyword search. Our system is regulated by sunlight and can be adjusted by the placement of the electronic eye. Since chickens actively forage at dusk, you have to make sure the pop-hole door doesn’t close before they are all inside.

Windows let in light and fresh air, and south-side windows capture the sun’s warmth. Provide at least 1 square foot of window for each 10 square feet of floor space (0.1 sq m of window per 1 sq m of floor). The windows should slide or tilt open so you can adjust airflow as the weather changes. They should be fitted with screens of ½- or ¾-inch (1.5 or 2 cm) hardware cloth to keep out wild birds, as well as weasels, minks, and raccoons that can tear through standard window screening and poultry netting.

A screen door, with ½-inch (1.5 cm) hardware cloth secured with screws and washers, provides extra ventilation on hot summer days.

The more time chickens spend indoors, the more important ventilation becomes. Ventilation serves these essential functions:

Supplies oxygen-laden fresh air

Removes heat released during breathing

Removes moisture from the air (released during breathing or evaporated from droppings)

Removes harmful gases (carbon dioxide released during breathing and ammonia evaporated from droppings)

Removes dust particles suspended in the air

Dilutes disease-causing organisms in the air

Compared to other animals, chickens have a high respiration rate, causing them to use up available oxygen quickly while at the same time releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide, heat, and moisture. As a result, chickens are susceptible to respiratory problems. Stale air inside the shelter makes a bad situation worse, because airborne disease-carrying microorganisms become concentrated more quickly in stale air than in fresh air.

Ventilation holes
near the ceiling along the south and north walls give warm, moist air a place to escape. Screens over the holes will keep out wild birds, which may carry parasites or disease. Drop-down covers, hinged at the bottom and latched at the top, let you open or close ventilation holes as the weather dictates. If you’re afraid you’ll forget, use temperature-sensitive vents with slats that open and close automatically.

During cold weather, not only must you provide good ventilation, but you have to worry about drafts. Close the ventilation holes on the north side, keeping the holes on the south side open unless the weather turns bitter cold.

In warm weather, cross-ventilation keeps chickens cool and removes moisture. The warmer the air, the more moisture it can hold. During the summer, open all the ventilation holes and open windows on the north and south walls.

A cupola
improves ventilation by letting hot, humid air escape through the roof where temperatures soar during summer.

Fans
are another option for ventilation if your shelter has electricity. Poultry-shelter fans come in two styles: ceiling mounted and wall mounted.

A variable-speed ceiling fan keeps the air moving but benefits chickens only if ventilation holes are open, to avoid trapping hot air against the ceiling. Use a ceiling fan only if your ceiling is high enough to keep you from bumping into it and your chickens from flying into it. If you can’t bump your head on the fan,
chances are it’s high enough for them to avoid flying into it, unless it’s directly over a perch or other platform from which a chicken conceivably might launch.

A wall-mounted fan sucks stale air out, causing fresh air to be drawn in. The fan, rated in cubic feet per minute, or cfm, should move 5 cubic feet (0.2 cu m) of air per minute per bird. If your flock is housed on litter, place the fan outlet near the floor, where it will more readily suck out dust as well as stale air. Since some dust will stick to the fan, a wall-mounted fan needs frequent cleaning with a vacuum or a pressure air hose.

A fan designed for use in your home won’t last long in the dust and humidity generated in the normal chicken shelter. To find fans designed for agricultural use, do a computer keyword search for “barn fan” or “agricultural fan” on the Internet or visit a local farm store or rural-oriented builder’s supply.

The temperature inside a chicken shelter varies throughout the day and with the seasons. Environmental factors that influence indoor temperature include the following:

The outside temperature and humidity