Soil or concrete, whats cleaner?

[FoodKillah]

Hi, i am planning a new coop, and i am wondering.

The runs ground is soil, but what about the ground inside the coop?

Please dont start with the predator stuff digging under the walls to get to their meal, i have no predator problems.

What i am asking is it easier to clean a coop that has concrete ground or soil ground?

I think that with soil its warmer and stays cleaner on the long term, because all you have to do is replace the dirty soil, with clean soil. I also think concrete is colder and might be easier to clean the first times, but after a while, doesnt all the floor become dirty with the pores on the cement full of poop dust and bacteria anyway?

Let me know what you all think

 

[joebryant]

With your being from the "Mediterranean sea" (whatever that means) and your having "no predator problems", I, personally, have no idea of what/how to best advise you. More information is needed.

 

[easttxchick]

For me personally, I HATE my dirt floor because as stupid as this will sound-you can't clean it. Make sense? What I mean is while I spray it with Oxine regularly, how much good is that really doing?
We will be putting a concrete floor in there this spring so that I can REALLY get it clean.
Where I live, the humidity is such a problem that the dirt floor just doesn't work the way I want it to and I want it replaced.
Since the winters are pretty mild here, the cold isn't something I have to worry much about. I can always put shavings/hay down on the concrete and actually be able to sweep/shovel them out.
My opinion, but the concrete is the way to go if you have that option.
Good luck!

 

[darkmatter]

See my BYC page. I love my dirt floor in the Coop which is a sub-ground level and composts with the Deep Litter Method. I only need to clean it out once a year to add it to my garden. My Coop/Run has been in use over 15 years.

 

[gmendoza]

I have a soil coop and run flooor and it works fine. We do the deep liter meathod thruout the year.Sometimes we put some grass seed in there at night,then rake it around so the chickens dont eat it all. Then in the spring when we clean it they will have a grass floor for at least a week til they chew it down..Then we start all over again with pine shavings or needles.

Just recently I tossed alot of mealworms in there.maybe they will get some darkling beatles this spring. They hunt for earthworms and all kinds of bugs durring the summer months in there.This is what a cement floor cannot do.

A cement floor is just good for cleaning.

Besides here in Rock Hill, if I put a cement floor in,then they call it a "permanent outbuilding" which I would have had to pay for a permit. My coop is a 8'x8'pallet coop inside a 12'x24' run. Even the posts are not cemented in.They are in the ground 2' deep.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Well, I have to say that for an old coot you have a fantastic setup. Really enjoyed viewing reading your My BYC Page. That's one of the best setups that I've ever seen. You've done a terrific job getting all those grasses, weeds, trees areas going.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I don't think there's one universal answer. It depends on your soil type, and on your climate.

In wet low clayey areas, concrete is easier to keep clean (provided you have a thick layer of something on top of it -- you really don't wanna keep chickens on just bare concrete, for a whole bunch of reasons).

In areas with good free-draining soil and a moderate amount of rainfall, soil is better in most ways.

In very wet or very dry areas, concrete might be mildly better in some ways (I think - have not actually lived in areas like that with chickens, so am extrapolating) but probably not enough to offset its disadvantages chicken-happiness-wise for most peoples' tastes.

Concrete should not be coarse-pored to have lotsa crud get stuck in; if there is doubt, use a couple coats of sealer first, but mainly just make sure it is a good pour and surface in the first place. It can be disinfected as the previous poster says (oxine or whatever) but there is hardly ever any reason to NEED to do this to a run so I do not see it as being an important factor in decisionmaking.

Again, if you use concrete, PLEASE put a real thick layer of something over it, to protect the birds feet and give them something to do and to scratch around in. Some of my runs are on concrete, because of the preexisting slab there; but I throw waste hay and garden weedings and dead leaves in there as much as possible. I would rather have them dirt (they are roofed so mud is not so much of an issue for me as it is for some setups) but the slab is *there* so it is certainly possible to make do with it.

I don't think hardly anyone realistically ever replaces their run soil with fresh soil. If it is free draining, the poo will more or less disappear (to the air and into the ground) over time, unless you have a very high stocking density of chickens. And if the soil is NOT free draining you are likely to find yourself amending it with gravel or sand or roadbase to MAKE it free-draining (just to avoid mud and stink) at which point you're back to the previous sentence's situation

JMHO, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[darkmatter]

Quote:
Well, I have to say that for an old coot you have a fantastic setup. Really enjoyed viewing reading your My BYC Page. That's one of the best setups that I've ever seen. You've done a terrific job getting all those grasses, weeds, trees areas going.

"You can learn a lot from a lazy man"

I'm a utilitarian type chicken/garden owner---I think things out and work hard to work less. The more fruit trees staggered to drop fruit into the run----the less feed I have to haul. Letting the chickens into the garden in the fall-----saves me weeding, tilling, and fertilizing the garden. I don't have water or electricity run to the coop, but collect the rainfall so I don't have too, and the windows are angled to collect sunlight during the winter when the leaves are off the trees.

 

[joebryant]

Quote:
Well, I have to say that for an old coot you have a fantastic setup. Really enjoyed viewing reading your My BYC Page. That's one of the best setups that I've ever seen. You've done a terrific job getting all those grasses, weeds, trees areas going.

"You can learn a lot from a lazy man"

I'm a utilitarian type chicken/garden owner---I think things out and work hard to work less. The more fruit trees staggered to drop fruit into the run----the less feed I have to haul. Letting the chickens into the garden in the fall-----saves me weeding, tilling, and fertilizing the garden. I don't have water or electricity run to the coop, but collect the rainfall so I don't have too, and the windows are angled to collect sunlight during the winter when the leaves are off the trees.

"I think things out and work hard to work less." Yep, that's evident, and doing so pays off.

 

[churchx3]

I use river sand in my coops and run and really like it...I do sprinkle DE in both the coops and runs as well as it acts as a drying agent. In the coops I did add a poop hammock about a month ago under the roosts and this aids in a quick cleanup of the coops. I do not personally do the deep litter method . Just my personal preference.