ventilation...eaves or end gable?

[my4ladies]

We were planning on using an end gable vent, but when I sent my husband to the store he came home with a vent for the eves (b/c it was cheaper) and said we could use it in place of the gable vent...and put in where a gable vent would go. But.... why not just scrap the whole gable vent/eve vent idea completely, keep solid walls, and just put hardware wire over the eves? Would this be enough ventilation? Too much?

Also, the roost was going to go up by the eves...so in the winter would this be too much draft do you think? Our coop is only 4x4x4 (almost done) so I wanted to put the roost up as high as I could, i.e. near the eves.

 

[patandchickens]

I would suggest both. Unless you have very, very few chickens in there (like, only a fraction of what BYCers would say your coop 'should' hold, or the coop has other large ventilation openings (open side, big windows, whatever) and this is only meant as *wintertime* ventilation, you will need a lot more than just what you describe.

Definitely I see no reason to BUY eave vents -- just wire the openings as you describe, and then if you need to close some of them off (upwind) in the depths of winter if you live in a cold area, there are many ways to arrange that.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Mak]

We did both gable vents on both ends, and left the eaves open and put screening and hardware cloth over the openings. Our coop is high enough that the eaves are well above the roosts, so I'm not too worried about direct breezes even in winter. But I think this arrangement gives you better ventilation, especially in the kind of heat we are having right now.

 

[rchucks]

coming from a roofer, remember that colder air enters through the eave and exits higher through either a roof vent or gable vent, so both are needed.

 

[kipper]

We have eave vents, DH made them with a drill press and mesh cloth. Lots of holes. Our gable ends are covered in hardware cloth for summer, then we put up panels to cover them in Winter.

More air flow is good. Don't get too thrifty on it (I am really cheap, so I understand the urge to save money!) Good luck on your chicken house!

 

[my4ladies]

okay, so I understand more ventilation is better, but I was thinking more about in the wintertime...even though I didn't say that (oops). So say we have the gable vent on one side & open eves (covered with hardware wire)...in the winter we should close off the eves and leave the gable vent open? Is that enough ventilation in the winter?

I'm really concerned (obsessively) with the coop being too drafty in the winter, but I know it still needs ventilation. And we'll have 4 chickens in there (2 bantems, 2 standard).

Thanks so much.

 

[Jaguaress]

This is the best info on ventilation, imo https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-VENTILATION