Poop board with or without lip?

[rjackh]

Do you guys prefer a poop board with a lip to hold sand, sweet pdz, etc. and filter clean it like a cat little box? Or do you prefer just a flat board that you can scrape clean with a putty knife?

 

[Cluckies]

Trays with sweet PDZ

 

[Primo]

No lip. I use white hard board bathroom paneling. It is Brown hardboard coated on one side with slick white surface similar to dry erase board. Look up my gallery coop pics as I can't seem to get to them on the phone. Call me lazy but I saw no point in sifting and scooping trays everyday. I can scrape off my 8 foot board in under 30 seconds. I do this every 2 days. I use a 6" wide plastic putty knife and scrape into a large dust pan. No other poop board method I have seen on this site is easier than the set up I use. But the key is too use the slick white hardboard. Plywood or textured vinyl won't work nearly as well

 

[Cluckies]

No lip. I use white hard board bathroom paneling. It is Brown hardboard coated on one side with slick white surface similar to dry erase board. Look up my gallery coop pics as I can't seem to get to them on the phone. Call me lazy but I saw no point in sifting and scooping trays everyday. I can scrape off my 8 foot board in under 30 seconds. I do this every 2 days. I use a 6" wide plastic putty knife and scrape into a large dust pan. No other poop board method I have seen on this site is easier than the set up I use. But the key is too use the slick white hardboard. Plywood or textured vinyl won't work nearly as well

I agree that does sound easy, but scooping it out only takes a minute or so as well. But the reason I like the sweet PDZ is the liquid and ammonia absorbing properties. My coup does not smell. At all. Even after they have been in there all night on the roost. I also like that it helps keep humidity down in the coop.

 

[PapaChaz]

Oh what a great idea. Thank you so much for sharing. I have been racking my brain trying to figure out a better surface and my slick plywood.

if you can find a flooring store with some scrap vinyl it works great on the poop board. I had some left over and after I attached the 1x4s around the edge for the lip, I put the vinyl down. I cut it long enough and wide enough to cover the bottom and up the sides. Cut the corners at an angle and stapled it all around. Then put about 1/2" of sand, and sprinkled sweet pdz on top of that. One of the bags of sand I used was wet, I let it dry a couple days before adding the pdz, but it still soaked all the moisture out of it.

here's mine:


for those in this thread who have said they don't want to spend time sifting sand to get the poo out, basically this is just taking a scoop where the poop is and picking it out. You don't have to sift the whole poop board full of sand/pdz everyday. I'd guarantee there is no more effort put into scooping out the poo than there is for you to scrape that poo off, and with the sand pdz there is NO odor. I can't wrap my head around why anyone would want to make this more unpleasant by having to deal with the odor.......

 

[RichnSteph]

Ours is bordered by 1x4's and filled with Stable-Dri. In the months that we've had it I'm still using the Stable-Dri that I bought the first time. Cleaning is a breeze with a kitty litter scoop and a bucket for the droppings. I literally takes me less than five minutes once a week to clean up after our chickens. It's so easy I can't believe that everyone isn't using them. We throw the droppings into a compost bin along with all of our kitchen scraps to use for planting in the spring.

RichnSteph

 

[WNCcluck]

We don't use a poop board at all. The floor of our coop is covered in vinyl upon which we've loaded a mixture of sand and PDZ. Clean up is a breeze with a telescoping rake and a kitty litter scoop. We do have 2x2's at the pop door and coop door to keep the mixture from being kicked out.

 

[Mahlzeit]

I guess it all depends on how many chickens you have. If i tried to use a kitty litter scoop it would have to be done daily and would take me a while. I prefer the poop board without a lip on the front and I scoop it right off.

 

[rjackh]

We don't use a poop board at all. The floor of our coop is covered in vinyl upon which we've loaded a mixture of sand and PDZ. Clean up is a breeze with a telescoping rake and a kitty litter scoop. We do have 2x2's at the pop door and coop door to keep the mixture from being kicked out.

Is the sweet pdz/sand mixture really that good? What's the litter look like under the roost? I was hoping to clean the coop maybe 1 or 2 times a week. I figured a poop board was a sure way to do this.

 

[Cluckies]

It is that good! Here is a great thread, read all about it! I use Sweet PDZ only, no sand.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/621363/poop-board-convert-warning-graphic-gross-poop-pictures

I go out in the morning scoop it up, coop is clean. works fabulous!