Best ideas for low maintenance coop?

[IdyllwildAcres]

If I thought I could not leave my chickens for a week I would not have them, my set up would allow me to leave for two weeks.
And if I thought I needed poop boards or to clean poop all the time I would never have started this
Big secure coop
Dirt floors
Multiple feeders, I use 4" pipes that dumps into rubber feed bowls, I have 4 of them and they hold 60 pounds of feed when full
Multiple waterers, I have 4 and they hold 25 gallons of water.
Auto pop door, but I have turned it off on trips so I would not worry it mal functioned

 

[Carson213]

i am in the willamette valley in oregon...it never gets extreme. any of our animals are fine outside.

 

[rosemarythyme]

So on your waterers how do you keep the water from freezing and getting dirty? Especially if you have made your coop and run able ready for you to leave for up to 2 weeks, please share and a couple pictures would be great if you don't mind.

Heated horizontal nipple waterers. Mine's good for probably 4-5 days in the summer, up to 2 weeks in winter (since the birds would rather drink filthy mud puddle water). If you're gone regularly I'd definitely invest in extra waterers just in case.

 

[Mamajewels]

I not only have too many birds, I have too many coops (though I believe there are worse vices!). My favorite coops have exterior nesting boxes which are easier to reach and way easier to clean, and I firmly believe in using poop boards under the roosts.

How do you make poop boards, this concept intrigues me! currently I have a small hand rake, a metal dust scoop and a cat litter scoop to pick out nightly poop from the coop.
Attached are the only pictures I currently have of my coop. I'm interested in any thing that will make cleaning easier!!

 

[aart]

If I thought I could not leave my chickens for a week I would not have them, my set up would allow me to leave for two weeks.
And if I thought I needed poop boards or to clean poop all the time I would never have started this
Big secure coop
Dirt floors
Multiple feeders, I use 4" pipes that dumps into rubber feed bowls, I have 4 of them and they hold 60 pounds of feed when full
Multiple waterers, I have 4 and they hold 25 gallons of water.
Auto pop door, but I have turned it off on trips so I would not worry it mal functioned

Yeah, poop boards are not for vacationing keepers.
What do you do about eggs @IdyllwildAcres ?

 

[Mamajewels]

If I thought I could not leave my chickens for a week I would not have them, my set up would allow me to leave for two weeks.
And if I thought I needed poop boards or to clean poop all the time I would never have started this
Big secure coop
Dirt floors
Multiple feeders, I use 4" pipes that dumps into rubber feed bowls, I have 4 of them and they hold 60 pounds of feed when full
Multiple waterers, I have 4 and they hold 25 gallons of water.
Auto pop door, but I have turned it off on trips so I would not worry it mal functioned

Every one is so nice and informative!! So yes, I plan on a larger coop, Even when this was my daughter's set up and these were her birds. I thought it was to small. At one point she had 8 chickens in there. She did however eventually open it and allow them to free range, but also has 2 dogs and no fence keeping each away from each other.

So on your waterers how do you keep the water from freezing and getting dirty? Especially if you have made your coop and run able ready for you to leave for up to 2 weeks, please share and a couple pictures would be great if you don't mind.

 

[Mamajewels]

Well, Mamajewels, I am known for my frugality, so I make poop boards out of whatever I can find or recycle. But the basic concept is to place something -- a tray of sorts or a flat surface -- a few inches below the roosts and above the floor that will catch your girls' droppings.

Ideally, since they aren't going to be walking on it, a poop board can have a slick surface. Some of my plywood ones are covered in free vinyl flooring pieces, given to me by a friend who owns a furniture store. Others are made from leftover wall chunks from a neighbors' hog house. Easy clean up is the goal.

Some of mine are removable; others are permanently attached. While you still have to clean the boards, their floor stays cleaner and everything on the poop board can be easily scraped off and disposed of.

Did that help? It seems kind of dumb when I re-read my explanation.

Thank you!! Visual is so much easier. I guess the part that confuses me is "below the roosts and on top of the floor that they don't walk on the trays" How does that work??

 

[Carson213]

i use the gutters on the coop to feed two 50 gal food safe barrels with heaters

 

[Callender Girl]

I agree, visuals would be better, and if you search for poop boards on this forum or Google, there are probably some nice photos. My suggestion, based on the photos of your roosts, would be to suspend a horizontal board -- perhaps by wire -- directly from your tree branch roosts so that it's a few inches below the roosts to allow poop to drop directly onto that surface. Now, there's not enough space between the roost and the board for the chickens to stand or walk around and poop won't drop onto the floor -- where there is now clean space for the girls to walk around.

I do use the "deep litter" method in a few of my coops. I try to never tell anyone that my way is the best or only way to do things, but I much prefer scraping poop off a suspended board to having to remove a foot of dirtied litter off a coop floor come spring. And, I do both.

The longer you are a member here, the more you will learn that everybody has their own preferences on nearly everything that has to do with chickens! Ultimately, consider what everyone says and do what works best for you. Best wishes with your new adventure!

 

[E Buschjost]

I am building my coop soon too and planning for as much automation as possible for us to be away for vacation from time to time.
After reading ALOT of forums and researching I’ve decided to add the following for those reasons:
An automatic pop door
An automatic waterer that is hooked up to a water hose (also a heated version for winter)
An automatic “treadle” feeder - large size. Roll away nest boxes. Accessible from the outside.
let me know if you have other ideas/suggestions.