Building First Coop, what to line it with

[buckrut]

I've been told that since the droppings are so acidic that you need to line the floor and up the side walls a few inches with a roofing type tar? I am using pressure treated plywood but do any of you recommend lining the floow with anything?

 

[Mark & Nique]

Pine shavings.

 

[LindsayB]

I bought some square linoleum tiles at home depot and put them down over the wood floor in our coop. It looks really nice...well...until you cover it with pine shavings lol. I usually replace the shavings every 2-3 weeks so its makes it very easy to clean. You can see what it looks like on my byc page.

 

[elmo]

I thought chicken manure was slightly alkaline...but anyway...

I've never heard of anyone using roofing tar inside the coop. Just curious, where did you read about this? I would think it might make cleaning out the coop difficult.

I just painted the plywood floor of our coops with Kilz to seal the wood, then put bedding over it. Sand, in our case, but many people use pine shavings.

 

[TN_BIRD]

A lot of folks will use vinyl flooring.

At the least I'd put on a couple coats of paint to seal the wood.

 

[JackE]

I used a rubberized roofcoat product I got from Lowes. I dumped a big dollop on the floor and pushed it around with a throwaway roller. It totally seals the wall to floor seam along with the floor itself. If it can stand up to the outside weather and sun on a roof , A chicken coop floor is nothing to this stuff.
Jack

 

[WayneT]

I'm in the process of building a combined chicken/duck coop. They will have seperate sides. I'm planning to use a product that sometimes goes by the name glass board. It's a thin sheet of fiberglass that you can glue to the floor and I plan to put it on the walls 2 feet up from the floors. I have used this to line the bottom of a salt water tank stand and it's impervious to just about everything. It's completely waterproof, so much so that if you seal the corners with silicone the under floor will never get wet. It will also make the floor much easier to clean as the stuff is very easy to clean off, nothing sticks to it. Lowe's in my area carries this and although it's a little costly I think it will pay for itself many times over especially when i'm cleaning out the coop.