Alaskan Insulated Chicken Coop Design and Construction

Alaska's weather is often extreme and this brings some extra challenges to designing and building a proper chicken coop.

While Fairbanks is known for -50 deg temps, and Anchorage can get almost as cold (-20 deg) most winters, Southeast Alaska isn't immune to weather extremes. Located between Canada and the main landmass of Alaska along the Gulf of Alaska, SE Alaska is comprised mostly of temperate rain forests and glacial fjords.

This mix of warm moisture from the Pacific Ocean colliding with cold air from the glacial ice-fields creates rain, massive amounts of rain. With this nearly constant precipitation comes high humidity and the perfect environment for fungi, specifically black mold.

This high humidity also posses problems for chickens. They are fairly well suited for cold weather as along as they have a place to get out of the snow and wind. When you add in a lot of rain, they don't fair so well. Once their feathers get wet, it's hard fro them to dry out and resist hypothermia. Unlike ducks, they don't have nearly the waterproof-ness in their feathers.

My design requirements for my chicken coop included insulation to keep heating costs down, weather tightness to keep drafts and wind driven rain out and an easy to maintain layout. I wanted it to be well built and have features specific to the harsh environment in SE Alaska.

With my basic requirements in hand, I hopped on Google SketchUp and started drawing.

Here was my working design. It's a 4' x 5'4" structure with nesting boxes on the end and relight windows that would catch the southern winter sun. I wanted some eves to protect the siding and when with 1' on all sides.

The door is just over 3' tall and is large enough for me to enter when necessary but I usually just reach in to feed, water and clean out bedding.

Here's Part 1 of the construction:

Chicks Arrive and Brooder Build

The Chicks Arrived!

After following their progress online, the chicks finally arrived at our local post office in early May 2012. I got up Sunday morning and saw that the tracking number said they were in, but I hadn't received a call so I decided to head down and get them anyway. I’m glad I did because the postal employees didn't seem to know what to do with them. I had been proactive and called the post office to let them know of the order and they said they would call as soon as they arrived. Everyone could hear them cheeping, but it hadn't dawned on anyone that they were supposed to call me. This is something the people of Juneau should know. The valley post office doesn't handle live animal shipments very often so they don’t seem to know the standard procedure.

The chicks weren't any worse for the trip, so home with me they went, all 26 of them.

As I mentioned before, we accepted a free exotic chick from Murray McMurray Hatchery, so we were excited to see this little yellow fluff ball mixed in with the Brown Partridge Rocks, Orange Buff Orpingtons, Black Barred Rocks and White and Black Silver Laced Wyandottes.

The kids were really excited to see the new chicks. It became a daily reward to get a few out to handle them.

Easy Rubbermaid Brooder

I put together a quick brooder using a Rubbermaid tote, scrap wood, hardware cloth and a piece of cardboard. It worked fine for the 26 chicks and then the 7 we kept. I hung a light with a 100 watt infrared bulb to keep them warm. I used some 1x3’s to form a lid that fit over the tote. One side had hardware cloth and the light sat on top of it. The other side was a flap of cardboard that was stapled down and served as the door. I kept a can of chick starter on it in case they tried to jump out, but was never an issue.

Here’s a video of the brooder: