subject: Importance Of Ventilation In Your Backyard Chickens Coop [print this page] If you have backyard chickens, you would need to give them a proper place to stay and rest. For chickens, this would be the coop. When buying or building coops, make sure they are well-ventilated. Ventilation plays an important role in ensuring that your chickens are healthy and happy. Here are some reasons why ventilation is important.
First of all, with ventilation, dampness and humidity will not be confined to the coop. This dampness is partly due to the water vapor from the breathing of the chickens, as well as the feces they drop. If there are no exit points for such vapor to be released from, it will only linger in the coop, making the air in the coop humid. Humidity that is relatively high can cause chickens to be susceptible to respiratory diseases and frostbite. This will not happen if there is ventilation as the air will be dry, which decreases the chances of frostbite from occurring.
Another important reason for having ventilation is that the fumes of ammonia that stems from the feces will be able to disperse out of the coop. Without ventilation, they will only pile up, causing more ammonia to evaporate into the surrounding air, unless you are constantly around to clear the feces from the coop. With that much ammonia, the tissues of the respiratory tract of the chickens can be damaged, making the chickens vulnerable to any harmful foreign particles in the air.
Apart from that, ventilation can allow heat to be released from the coop. On normal days, chickens can generate much heat from their feathered body alone. Thus, on hotter seasons, the coop can burn up with the presence of the chickens body heat plus the hot temperature from the surroundings. As a result, the chickens can suffer from heat stress or even die. Having proper ventilation will allow such heat to be released, while air from outside to circulate in the coop.
Overall, ventilation is important for the health of your backyard chickens. Having an open door does not count as ventilation; there needs to be openings around so that air can flow in from either directions. Keep your chickens happy by fixing up ventilated coops.
