This winter has definitely thrown us for a loop. It's a good thing we live in an old farm house as with the cold temps, our chickens were not faring well in the coop. They weren't moving around much at all (leaving food which means they were too cold to even get up to eat!!)and the 3 roosters have pretty bad frostbite from the prior cold snap. They are now residing in our unheated dirt basement. We'll have to shovel and rake a layer of dirt out when they get sent back to the coop as soon as this cold snap passes.

With that said, I've started looking at the costs associated with a coop "remodel". I know many people make their own coops but I'm looking for specific information for rural Pennsylvania or surrounding area on how much insulation should go into this project. I don't want to spend the $ and have frostbitten chickens again.

Next time I head out to the coop I'll try to remember to take pictures of what it currently looks like. I have to add windows which I picked up some single ones on the side of the road. The coop is much like the barn...just pieces of wood put together to make a wall and a few diagonals, etc. I cut a hole into the back wall toward the run to make an exit for them when we got them. I was thinking of adding insulation/insulation board and adding another interior wall which would give me a frame for the windows then too.

My question is though....how much insulation does one in the NE of the US put in a coop they are building/renovating? I'll also take pics as things progress and hopefully find the 1st set of photos I did when they were just tiny chicks. (I posted them on one of the groups but now cannot find them)

found them!

I have since pulled off a large board to allow light into the coop. I've also added screeening to the outside on those windows. This summer I want to get the rest of the broken windows out and put in other windows to pull in heat. I have plastic over the windows and I have stapled our old dumor feed bags to the wall to try to help with any drafts. We also added 1/4" wood to the flooring because no matter how much we tried we kept losing our pine shavings through the cracks. So our coop looks REALLY shabby right now.

Our chicken coop--36'x11.5'. The 11ish' portion on the right is blocked off from the rest for chicks or younger birds. This was a set up from the 1950s or so. The larger portion we currently are using for storage since we only have 6 small chicks. Upcoming Weekend projects- open the covered windows and replace glass as well as fix a few wood knot holes in the floor. Then nesting boxes need to be built with some scrap wood we have. Oh, and thicker roosts