dropping board?

julie1015

In the Brooder
9 Years
Mar 18, 2010
14
0
22
Northwest WA
Hi,
I'm pretty new at this, I have 15 2-week-old chicks...I've been reading a lot of threads about sand floors and some people have put dropping boards under their roosts. What do you mean by that? Is it just a board(plywood?) under the roosts that you scrape off? How often?
Thanks!
 
Yes...they make clean up much easier. A quick scrape down once a day (some scrape them every other day, 2x a week, etc.) into a bucket with a putty knife...takes maybe 2-3 minutes. You won't need a dropping board until your pullets/cockerels are old enough to be in the "big coop" and are actually roosting.
There are many varieties...here is mine:
37862_chickens_11_weeks_008.jpg


ETA: plywood is fine, but much easier to clean if you cover it in scrap vinyl flooring or something similar. Some put trays (like cafeteria trays) along theirs...
 
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They work great,the chickens roost over them at night,I have sweet pdz in them and I scoop them out everday with a litter scooper and put the poop in a pail and it goes to the compost pile.
44824_girl_helping_with_poop_boards.jpg
 
You will get different opinions about droppings boards on this forum, each supported by well-reasoned arguments. It really boils down to a matter of preference. I am from the "no droppings boards camp". I use the deep litter method, which I won't go into here since you can find tons on it by doing a simple search here and on Google. Suffice it to say, droppings boards give you something to clean everyday, whereas the deep litter method, if done properly, does not. There is nothing wrong with droppings boards. In fact, they serve the very purpose for which their proponents claim to use them, and work very well. For me, it is about how much work you want to put into keeping your coop clean. Using droppings boards is like have a litter box and scooping the poop everyday. Deep litter method allows you to put off cleaning for about a year without creating any smell. Kind of like an odorless litter box that takes a year to fill up.

My suggestion is to read up on both and decide what you like best. Neither is any better or worse for your chickens.

UGCM
 
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By the way, droppings boards only catch the poop that accumulates while they roost at night, which is a significant period of heavy pooping, but it does nothing for the daytime poop. If they are in the run or on the range during the day, the droppings boards are going to catch most of your coop poop. If, however, they spend significant awake time in the coop, they are going to be pooping up a storm and you will need to use the DLM anyway, unless you plan to scoop the poop in the the whole coop.
 
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