A Clean Coop

[JakRat]

How do you keep yours clean?

We are on our second batch of chicks. Our other 5 girls stopped laying after 2 years so they went to a friends place but ANYWAY! Our last girls we had a hard time keeping their coop clean. They never roosted, they sat and looked out the bottom of their second floor (A frame coop with chicken wired bottom). The coop floor was just the ground we covered in landscape fabric and chicken wire. Should we maybe switch over to placing wood on the floor???

 

[ThinkingChickens]

You could try putting them on the roost a few nights in a row after they fall asleep and see if they get the hang of it.

 

[citychickx6]

My set up is:

8x8 converted shed ( wood floor with linoleum installed on it and 6 inches up the wall )
Roosts x 2 @ 42 inches long and 33 inches off the floor ( they only use one

)
Poop boards 12 inches below the roosts ( also covered in linoleum )
2 nest boxes 15 inches wide and 18 inches high and 18 inches deep mounted 6 inches off the floor

I am using pine shavings on the floor 4 inches deep and on the poop boards.
I only have 6 chickens. They are about 12 weeks old and have been in the coop since around fathers day.
Cleaning:
I scrape the poop boards once a day into a bucket ( compost pile for that ) and change all the pine on the floor once a week.
So far no odors and not much work.

 

[Keltara]

When I began my BYC adventure this past April, I came across this post. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=444759 I took his advice and I am so glad I did. I love sand!! It is sooooooo clean, does not smell, there are no flies in my coop and my girls have no bugs or mites.

 

[citychickx6]

I am thinking I like the sand idea since the pine makes for a disposal need.

I set my coop up so that we can switch over in the future. LOL silly that I bought 4 huge bags of the pine when they were in the brooder still.

 

[JakRat]

Sounds great! We used sand in a little box for them to dust in, but they werent that interested. It was the play sand though, so maybe we will try the coarser sand. Thanks!!

 

[GoldenSparrow]

I put a plastic lid under the perch. in the morning I clean it.

Works wonders, and leaves the coop always smelling of sweet hay.

 

[JakRat]

Quote:
My chicks are not a big fan of the sand. It is pretty hilarious, they dont like walking on it for some reason. I think that today I will add some pine shavings to it and just use the sand as the base and still use the siffter to clean up

.

 

[crazyhen]

I have tried all the above and for me its sand on the poop board that I can scoop, sift to clean with some stall dry mixed in it. In the floor I have wood, linoleum and pine shavings mixed with stall dry added. My coop is much cleanner smelling now. It requires less time to clean up. If I could figure a way to clean the bigger areas of sand with a long handle I would put it all in sand inside on the linoleum but so far I have not seen anything that would sift that large an area for me. Someone needs to invent something for us. Rakes are too wide between the staves and have no catching power. Kitty litter scoops have to wide of spaces and lets too much through. Gloria Jean

 

[hallerlake]

Quote:
I compost the pine bedding. It makes good mulch.