Painting the inside of the coop.....yes? no?

[Lesa]

I painted mine (white) and have never seen anyone pecking it. I was a little surprised how much poop ends up on the walls- very glad I painted. Much easier to scrub off...

 

[pulletkeeper]

I would not paint anything the chickens can come in contact with. My 5 hens started peeling the paint of the outside of their coop in their run. I had to put tin on the side of my building to keep them from ingesting it and tearing up the wood. If they have access to it in their coop I would hate to see what would happen

especially if you have older wood........

 

[patandchickens]

Well, I've certainly never had my chickens peck at sound paint, and the vast majority of BYCers report the same... chickens will peck at *peeling* paint, but paint that is peeling needed to be redone ANYhow. (And done properly, i.e. with good surface preparation and then a thin coat of primer and then several *thin* coats of paint, otherwise it will peel prematurely)

I would not put it past a few unusual and/or bored chickens to peck sound paint but that is by far not what normally happens.

Painted surfaces are much, much easier to clean than unpainted; and outdoors (exposed to sun and weather) will last significantly longer.

FWIW, nowadays, regular ol' interior latex paint is (when dry) pretty entirely nontoxic, as are many exterior latex paints. Some exterior latex paints contain a small amount of mercury as a mildewcide, but it has to be listed as such on the label so you can recognize these and avoid them if you want. Of course, OLD (like, pre-1980) paint can have lead in it and is arguably not great for animals to be eating flakes of, but this has nothing to do with what you can/should/might paint your coop with NOWADAYS.

JME, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[CityChook]

My chickens don't peck the paint on their coop. It's really really easy to clean, too. I live where it's pretty cold, so I use exterior semi-gloss as it can handle the temperature fluxuations a little better than interior paint. The most important thing is to prime first. I prefer oil-based Kilz when working with wood, but I'm sure latex would be okay if you already have it. I have noticed that oil-based primer covers the knots and imperfections in the wood where the latex will not -- the knots will bleed though the color like a stain. Most people don't care about this, but I'm a little wound tight I guess. I just figure that if I'm making the effort, it should be pretty when I'm finished...