Chin barns and buildings

[Encantadora]

We are looking at new places to live and hope to convert a room off the garage or out building/shed into a chin barn.

What do we need to consider? How did you set your up? How did you heat/cool it? What else did you install (air purifier, de humidifier, etc)?

Any advice?

 

[Encantadora]

We're moving to Knoxville which is less humid but still a problem.

My other concerns are air flow and lighting.

Right now they have their own room which gets cleaned daily by shop vac. I have heavy duty plastic carpet protectors down to catch debris and cover the floor. The room is obviously temp controlled and gets natural light. I also have an air purifier with ionic breeze in there.

 

[RDZCRanch]

I converted part of my garage into a chinchilla room. We insulated it VERY heavily and I painted the walls with high gloss white paint for easy clean up. I have a window a/c unit that sits in a small window cut out for cooling and a squirrel cage fan at another cutout for air circulation. I'll also be installing a screen door for winter time airing out. I don't need a heater where I live and I didn't install anything else in there.

Lighting, we used something like this http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...talogId=10053&productId=202052422&R=202052422
which work very well for lighting up the room and bolt to the ceiling.

 

[tunes]

I turned a 1 car garage into my chin barn. I would caution heavily insulating it, and if Becky reads this she will as well. I have a huge problem with humidity in my barn because of it. If you are not in a humid area, this may not be an issue, but with 100s of animals in a building that has a humidity issue - it sucks. It's a constant battle to keep the humidity down. Just something to consider.

As far as the rest of it, I took out the garage door, installed 2 good sized windows. I have a squirrel cage on the other end of the building. I use a window a/c (wish it was practical to have central in a detached garage) and in the winter I rarely use heat at all unless it gets incredibly cold. My barn sits around 50-55 in the winter and the chins love it. I use solid bottom pans with shavings and houses, and have had no issue with kits in the lower temperatures. If the temperature really drops (-35 area) then we run a milk house heater on low just until the weather breaks.

If I could have, I would have added a sink to the chin room and windows on both ends.

 

[Encantadora]

RDZ- that's the type of lighting I was looking for. I'll keep the link for reference.

Tunes- do you have a thermostat? Do you just check the temp daily and adjust the ac unit as needed?

 

[tunes]

I have a thermostat that shows both the temperature and the humidity. I check it multiple times during the day and go from there.

 

[Encantadora]

Also, how cold do you let it get in the winter? What about animals being transitioned from house life where it's always high 60's-low 70's?

 

[RDZCRanch]

I turned a 1 car garage into my chin barn. I would caution heavily insulating it, and if Becky reads this she will as well. I have a huge problem with humidity in my barn because of it. If you are not in a humid area, this may not be an issue, but with 100s of animals in a building that has a humidity issue - it sucks. It's a constant battle to keep the humidity down. Just something to consider.

Agreed on this, we insulated my building like crazy because I'm in the desert and there's rarely humidity here. We had a week of thunderstorms though and keeping the humidity down was ****. We also have extreme temperature changes, so the insulation is necessary here.

I let temperatures drop fairly low in the winter, the chins handle cold just fine. I do put heating pads under pregnant female's pans during the winter though as you can lose babies at lower temperatures. Other breeders/ranchers I've talked to said they start losing babies under 50 degrees.

 

[lynnschins]

I have been working on the logistics of moving my chinchillas into a "barn" or a shed. I came across this post and tho it was helpful all who responded were from the western part of the country. I live in NY and will need to heat, cool and deal with humidity. Could someone from the north east please let me know how they deal with the heating, cooling and humidity control? I am also curious if anyone has any regrets after moving their chinchillas from inside the house?