fresh air poultry houses?

Has anybody read this?
http://www.nortoncreekpress.com/fresh_air_poultry_houses.html
It's got me intrigued! I have sent off for the book from amazon to see if they can convince me. Hmmm.
By  the way I'm already obsessed with chickens and I haven't even got any yet! Just at the planning stage. Spending all my time surfing the net and reading up on them. I dread to think what I'll be like once we've actually got some! I'll probably be a dreadful bore.

Interesting idea though isn't it. I supposed if the house was inside a covered run that in a sheltered spot that would help with rain. Mind you most of the photo's I saw the hen houses were so huge they'd probably just scuttle off to the dry end. Did you see the bit about the coops being full of snow? I can't wait to read the book even if it turns out to be tosh. It sounds fascinating!

as I still have 14 tree dwellers (even in this snow  ) I think it should be ok. Even though we advise to keep ventilation above head height and to be aware of draughts it seems that open air doesn't cause the concentrated draught that can kill. One of my girls a little silkie cross banty called Claudette has slept outside for a couple of years and only coming in to lay eggs and hatch eggs, she seems to be really healthy 

Oh, I don't intend to use this system, I just thought it was interesting considering how careful we have to be about draughts and how worried everyone seems to be about cold winter temperatures. The book looks like it might have a few old fashioned tips about chickens that may be interesting too I hope. It's always interesting to see how people used to do things. I'm the same with the garden. I love old gardening books and old wives tales about how to care for your garden although I couldn't say I use any of them really.

The article mentions frequently that having this open air system vastly improves ventilation (obviously!) and that improves the hen's air quality as far as ammonia, dust etc is concerned. With a big commercial set up I can perhaps understand this, but for the back garden hen keeper, v.regular cleaning/poo picking etc should mean the hens always have good air quality in a well designed conventional hen house. I don't think the inside of our hen house smells any different to the outside air..... With the weather we have been having I am glad to close mine up each night (& I still worry during the night about them being cold!).