Is bedding really necessary inside the coop?

[ForFlocksSake]

I have 5 girls, all 13-14 weeks. My setup is the Largest sized Formex coop (plastic) attached to a large covered run. The coop is purely for sleeping and they rarely go inside during the day, especially since we made a roosting ladder inside the run for them to climb. From the beginning I had been putting pine shavings on the floor of the coop. I love how this coop is designed because it makes cleanup easy. There are two large plastic trays (much like the bottom of a dog crate) that slide out through the back. It's basically dump out the mess and slide back in. Problem has been we are trying to use the poop for compost, and with only 5 girls the ratio of poop to wood chips is pretty off. We want the POOP, not the wood chips. I see how many use poop boards for their much larger coops and im wondering if I can achieve the same thing if I just forgo the bedding all together. The nesting boxes have bedding (though they aren't laying yet) but is there any real reason for the floor of the coop to be bedded if all they do is climb in at night and hop up on the roosts?

I'll add because I know its a consideration for others - We don't really have a serious winter here (North Florida) so they are never locked in there more than overnight. The only time I have ever shut them in all day was this week when a hurricane came through, and I put food and water in there the night before in preparation.

 

[SueT]

PDZ can used for the floor, it’s kind of like sand. You sift the poop out with a cat litter scoop. I use this on the floor of my smaller coop and on the poop boards in larger coop. At least 1/2” deep.

 

[aart]

I have 5 girls, all 13-14 weeks. My setup is the Largest sized Formex coop (plastic) attached to a large covered run. The coop is purely for sleeping and they rarely go inside during the day, especially since we made a roosting ladder inside the run for them to climb. From the beginning I had been putting pine shavings on the floor of the coop. I love how this coop is designed because it makes cleanup easy. There are two large plastic trays (much like the bottom of a dog crate) that slide out through the back. It's basically dump out the mess and slide back in. Problem has been we are trying to use the poop for compost, and with only 5 girls the ratio of poop to wood chips is pretty off. We want the POOP, not the wood chips. I see how many use poop boards for their much larger coops and im wondering if I can achieve the same thing if I just forgo the bedding all together. The nesting boxes have bedding (though they aren't laying yet) but is there any real reason for the floor of the coop to be bedded if all they do is climb in at night and hop up on the roosts?

I'll add because I know its a consideration for others - We don't really have a serious winter here (North Florida) so they are never locked in there more than overnight. The only time I have ever shut them in all day was this week when a hurricane came through, and I put food and water in there the night before in preparation.

You could try it out, see if it works.
Best to dump those trays daily tho, maybe squirt off with a hose once a week(let thoroughly dry before reinstalling).
The reason for bedding is to dry the poops and deter flies and odors.

 

[ForFlocksSake]

You could try it out, see if it works.
Best to dump those trays daily tho, maybe squirt off with a hose once a week(let thoroughly dry before reinstalling).
The reason for bedding is to dry the poops and deter flies and odors.

So how does it work with poop boards? I’ve seen so many builds where people just use plywood below the roosts. Does wood dry it out or control the smell?

 

[Happy hen lover]

I have 5 girls, all 13-14 weeks. My setup is the Largest sized Formex coop (plastic) attached to a large covered run. The coop is purely for sleeping and they rarely go inside during the day, especially since we made a roosting ladder inside the run for them to climb. From the beginning I had been putting pine shavings on the floor of the coop. I love how this coop is designed because it makes cleanup easy. There are two large plastic trays (much like the bottom of a dog crate) that slide out through the back. It's basically dump out the mess and slide back in. Problem has been we are trying to use the poop for compost, and with only 5 girls the ratio of poop to wood chips is pretty off. We want the POOP, not the wood chips. I see how many use poop boards for their much larger coops and im wondering if I can achieve the same thing if I just forgo the bedding all together. The nesting boxes have bedding (though they aren't laying yet) but is there any real reason for the floor of the coop to be bedded if all they do is climb in at night and hop up on the roosts?

I use pdz in poop board( in my case they are shallow wooden trays) much like your pans. It does help smell I just scoop them with cat litter scoop. In coop I use pine shavings deep litter method and use it as mulch in fall on garden. In spring (zone 5a) I just mix in to soil. That being said I just changed over to pdz I was using shavings and then I just scooped or just gloved up and grabbed the poop with very little shaving attached. In my composter I figure the shaving count as brown and poop as green. So it works out. With the pdz there's hardly any product stuck to poo.
Some folks just dump pooed up shavings in run to keep down mud , but you might have sand in your run.

 

[BDutch]

I have sand in the coop and on the poop board. Only have bedding in the nest boxes.
The poop droppings fall on the board in a thin layer of sand. I take out all overnight poop with a cat litter scoop too twice or 3 times a week. I use playground sand or sand from a nearby field on the poop boards. PDZ is not for sale where I live.
Only when its freezing cold I add straw to the sand floor.

 

[Penpal]

If you want the manure for compost, just put newspaper on the floor. Or straw. The straw is a good addition to the compost pile.

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

So how does it work with poop boards? I’ve seen so many builds where people just use plywood below the roosts. Does wood dry it out or control the smell?

We place a large long piece of cardboard under our roost at night. In the morning we scrape the poop into a lined garbage can with a putty knife scraper. When garbage is full we dump it into the compost. Boxes are easy to come by so this works well for us. I only have 3 hens so it works.

 

[Jakemedic]

We have a “poop board” over our two large perches. A couple of times a week we use an old hoe and it drops into a 5 gallon bucket. We use something the feed store recommended sweet something used in coops and barns to limit smells. Works amazing! I’d go look but we dumped it into. 5 gallon bucket with a lid on it. Take a small scoop and throw it in the coop. Hope this helps!

 

[fowltemptress]

I got fed up with the flooring of our coop and didn't like any bedding that was being suggested. Any amount of bedding in there for longer than a day became a fly magnet regardless of how often I cleaned. I wound up ripping out the wooden floor of the coop, filling in the entire bottom of the coop area with riverbed rock for drainage, laid hardware cloth over that to keep out potential rodents and whatnot, and then put vinyl flooring directly over all that and called it a day. With the pebbles underneath, the flooring is nice and soft so I don't need to worry about the birds making hard landings, and I just go in every morning with a dustbin and paint scraper to scoop up the nighttime droppings and transfer them to the compost- the birds don't use the coop during the day, so after the morning scrape there's nothing to attract flies until the next morning. I haven't had to wash the floor yet, but if it ever gets bad it'll be a cinch to toss some water in there and squeegee everything out. I keep one bag of shavings in the coop just in case it rains and the birds track in the damp. An extremely light dusting of shavings absorbs the wet so I'm able to easily sweep it out into the run and everything is dry again.

That's a very long way of saying, no, I haven't found bedding to be necessary inside the coop, and I actually far prefer my beddingless coop setup.