How long does it take YOU to clean your coop?

[ALJhappychicken]

Hi, everyone! I just finished cleaning my big, old coop and thought it would be fun to know how long it takes y'all. It took me 1hr. and 30 mins. It's nice to see a clean coop! I have 15 hens and, as I said, a big coop. I havn't cleaned it in about two months or so. How long does it take YOU?

 

[iwiw60]

Quote: Have you tried the horizontal water nipple buckets??? They have made my life a DREAM! No more daily changing of waterers, no more daily scrubbing of the waterers....it's great! If you want more info in case you haven't seen them yet, just let me know!

 

[iwiw60]

Oh gosh, after the DIY bucket feeder fiasco I'm not up to trying another bucket project! Maybe someday I'll work up the enthusiasm to try it, but I'm still stinging from the last bucket project, lol!

Oh now....c'mon....be brave!! Listen, if I can do it, ANYbody can! I'm 70 years old, single retiree, all by myself, have always in past years been the "gopher" on projects, never the 'doer'. Here's how, and TRUST ME! It has been a lifesaver...just think...no more cleaning out yucky waterers every day and no more filling up the waterers every day...it's da bomb!
=============================================================
1. Get yourself a good plastic bucket. For women flock keepers I recommend getting ahold of a 2-1/2 gallon bucket (they're easier to bring back to the coop/run when you do rinse them out and refill).

2. Purchase a small set of horizontal water nipples ..they look like this:

You can get them in lots of places on the internet. HINT: Don't get the 'cup' style if you have freezing weather in winter months OR the 'vertical' ones...they freeze up on you.

3. Use a drill with a 3/8" bit (important, only use 3/8" bit) and drill holes in your bucket about 1-1/2 to 2" up from the bottom, spacing them out. The ones I bought came in a pack of 5 so I just evenly spaced them around.



4. Then all you do is screw them in. HINT: be careful you screw them into the bucket straight-on. These are "self-tapping" water nipples and they DO make a water-tight seal. Keep the nipples good and straight (you'll see an indentation of sorts where any possible drips could go..make sure they are level).

5. Guess what? After about 20 minutes you are DONE!

6. After filling your bucket put the bucket lid on the top but only 'snap' 1 or 2 snaps-worth...you have to have air or they won't work.

7. If your girls have never used water nipples before it is EASY to teach them. I sat in the coop and kept "clicking" the little stainless steel thingie. Out of curiosity one of my girls came up to it and tapped it herself and figured out "hey! There's water here girls!!" It didn't take but an hour or so and they were all using them....HINT: you must remove ALL other water sources .. all of them..that's the trick to it. Don't give in if your girls are timid to switch over....trust me....they WILL switch!

8. Now aren't you proud of yourself??

 

[Blooie]

Between cleaning off the poop board (or the "poop deck", as my 8 year old granddaughter calls it - we're a Navy family), turning over just the very top layer of litter, and filling the feeder it takes me less than 10 minutes a day. I have 20 chickens.

 

[vehve]

Why use a nipple bucket? What's the benefits? 'Cause my old, faithful 5 gal. waterer isn't working quite right. When that isn't useable anymore, should I get a nipple bucket? Do stores sell them? Seems one of us should have started a nipple bucket thread!
Have a happy 7/11 ! (The date, at least in my time, is 7/7/14!)

Hope y'alls' flocks are thriving!

When properly constructed, contaminants don't get in contact with the water, so you don't need to clean it as often. Also, they don't spill around water the same way as open waterers do. There are probably threads about them in the 'Feeding and watering your flock' section.

 

[LNMND]

My 35 hens are on deep litter in dirt floor coop (former cow shelter) 12'x20' with an attached 8'x20' fully screened run, opening onto pasture surrounded by electric poultry netting. I use dry grass cuttings for nesting material and just toss it onto the coop floor when dirtied.

Waterer is half a 50 gallon lidded food grade drum set partway into the ground inside the coop, gravity fed through a float valve from rainwater barrel and backup hose. Hens reach through 2" diam. holes drilled in the sides above water level, below the lid. I keep a couple of algae-eating aquarium fish in it. They do a good job and save me a lot of work. During the hottest time of the year I bail the tank weekly; otherwise it stays clean. If doing again I would elevate the entire tank and ask the girls to climb to a platform to drink from it. They could not scratch dust and litter into it, and I could drain it by gravity instead of bailing.

Conversion to deep litter system inside the coop changed everything for the better. No poop piling up, no smell, no flies, almost no work, and fine compost material produced. Now I just pile wood shavings from a local cabinetry shop (no pressure treated wood allowed) and the girls constantly turn it over. Sprinkle DE at feeders, waterer, and in nest boxes weekly. From time to time when my compost pile needs a boost or garden or fruit trees need mulch, I pull out a couple of wheelbarrows of old litter from the lower regions. 4 or 5 times a year I throw about 3 cubic yards of fluffy new litter below the favorite roosts and let the girls spread it out.

Hens roost on large diameter bamboo poles screwed to the wall at various heights and locations. When roosts get dirty I replace them with new ones cut from a bamboo grove in the yard, and burn the old roosting poles. (I use an old wooden ladder suspended horizontally for chicks, and gradually raise the height. This gets cleaned and repainted for each new group.) Horizontal surfaces get too dirty too fast so I have tried to eliminate them where possible. I use a metal scraper to clean what I can't burn, always wearing a dust mask and gloves.

Recently I added deep litter in the dirt run as well, and eliminated flies in that area. First I raked the dirt floor deeply and gave the girls a couple of days to clean out existing fly larvae in the ground. Then added wheelbarrows full of fresh cut grass (essentially green hay) and banana leaves, garden materials with all the attached roots to about 6" depth. Each week I am adding whatever fresh green material is available. Chickens LOVE it! I am now thinking of the run as a place where chickens accelerate compost production while browsing and hunting through the green material. I created this run a year ago as a place to raise chicks safe from hawks, but it is used by all the adults when there are no chicks in residence. I can see an added benefit to having warm cushy compost for the little ones when they first come outside in January (here in south Florida).

 

[Mountain Peeps]

Including the clean up around the coop, it usually takes me about an hour or two.

 

[iwiw60]

My coop is 5' x 8' and when I do a thorough cleaning it takes me around one hour.....whew!!

 

[vehve]

We do a 3 minute clean of the run daily, and scoop the worst and turn the bedding in the coop, which takes about 2 minutes. At the same time we mix the days mash and check the waterers, so about 10 minutes of maintenance daily. We've only emptied the coop once, although it wasn't really necessary, but we wanted to do a good scrubbing and empty out everything. Took about an hour, but I think it's something that won't need to be done more often than maybe 2-3 times a year. We have 8 chickens now, but up until Monday it was still 9.

 

[ALJhappychicken]

We do a 3 minute clean of the run daily, and scoop the worst and turn the bedding in the coop, which takes about 2 minutes. At the same time we mix the days mash and check the waterers, so about 10 minutes of maintenance daily. We've only emptied the coop once, although it wasn't really necessary, but we wanted to do a good scrubbing and empty out everything. Took about an hour, but I think it's something that won't need to be done more often than maybe 2-3 times a year. We have 8 chickens now, but up until Monday it was still 9.

Wow, vehve, that's very thorough! Do you ever need to empty the whole coop, or is that short, daily routine all the coop cleaning you do?