Chicken perch with poop board - I finally made one (!!!) and have questions

[FunClucks]

So I've been meaning to do it for a long time, and finally got it finished, and am super excited about it! I've made a new chicken perch for my largest layer coop/covered run. A comfortable occupancy is around 15-20 chickens, so I built for 15 with space to expand to 20. I've added 1" of Zeolite (Sweet PDZ horse stall refresher) to the poop board, and have been scooping the poops out daily with a cat litter scoop. It's working great! Next, I'm trying to build one for my New Hampshire meat bird flock if the weather will hold out.

Questions:

1. Does anyone have suggestions for how to buy or build a better litter scoop? It scoops about 80%+ of the poops, but there are small bits I can't scoop well due to the width of the slots in the kitty litter scoop.
2. Other than going out after dark and relocating birds that are perching on the bottom edge, any suggestions for keeping them from using the edge of the poop board as a perch? I can already tell scooping poops from the floor of the run is going to be a thing and wondering if there's any way to head that off. Only a bird or two is perching on the side of the poop board instead of the top roost, but it's annoying me.

Pics of my built perch attached. Pics of perch in the covered run to follow. The piece of plastic was to keep the rain off while waiting for the old perch to get demolished so I could move the new one into the covered run. It sat outside for a week, and it rained almost every day.

This perch was way over-designed, and was almost too heavy for us to lift. Took 2 adults to move it into the covered run, and lots of stops along the way.

18" was the perfect interior dimensions for the poop board. No poop gets on the wooden sides of the poop board area.

I think the perch is about 6" above the Zeolite. Seems a good height and easy to scoop.

The birds have left it alone all day, they perch there only at night near as I can tell.

I found an egg on the Zeolite when I went out yesterday an hour after sunrise to scoop it. We'll see if someone tries to lay up there, or if it was a one-off.

I used the following materials:

• 8ft x 18" x 1/4"(?) plywood. It was slightly flimsy, had a bit of bend in it as I was moving it about.
• Lots of 8ft 2"x4". I bought maybe 5 and had a fair bit of scrap lying about that I used up.
• One 10ft 2"x4". The 8ft 2"x4" I'd originally planned to use as a perch board was warped in multiple ways so badly I had to use a different piece of lumber. So I used a 10 ft one instead, and figure I'll put another framed out section of poop board under it once I grow out more birds.
• 6 18"x18" peel and stick vinyl floor tiles as the base for the poop board to enable easier scooping. It scored nicely with a box cutter and I could pop it over to break it, similar to laminate flooring.
• Lots of 1"x1" braces beneath the poop board, probably about 4 total across the width of it, and then the plywood had about 1/8" gap at one side once the side 2"x4" pieces were on, so I ran 1"x1" down the length of the poop board on one side underneath everything to keep the Zeolite from spilling out. Caulk would've been quicker and probably easier, but it was too cold and rainy for caulk for most of the time I was building it, and I didn't want the chickens to eat the caulk (main reason).
• Lots of 2" and 2.5" decking screws.
• A 2ft furniture clamp to hold the legs against the cross beams until I could get the screws into them.

 

[DobieLover]

Does anyone have suggestions for how to buy or build a better litter scoop? It scoops about 80%+ of the poops, but there are small bits I can't scoop well due to the width of the slots in the kitty litter scoop.

It doesn't really matter to get it that clean. But you can make a "super sifter" by securing a piece of finer kitchen sieve to a second cat litter scoop for when you want to do a super clean. The sieve is cut off the kitchen sieve frame and wired onto the litter scoop.

This is the board cleaned with the routine scoop.

This is the board cleaned with the super scoop.

You will never get it all out. And that does not matter. In the 6 years I have been using my new coop, I've not once changed the litter on the boards. I just add as needed to keep the thickness around 1/4".

Other than going out after dark and relocating birds that are perching on the bottom edge, any suggestions for keeping them from using the edge of the poop board as a perch? I can already tell scooping poops from the floor of the run is going to be a thing

I leave them be as long as their butts are over the edge of the boards. Part of your issue is that the board lips are so high.

it's annoying me.

Let it go. It isn't going to hurt a thing.
I don't care how much pooping my flock does on the coop floor litter as they go out to the run as soon as they come off the roost in the morning to eat, drink and hang out on the perches in the run until I come to let them out. In the winter they hang out in the coop much more (and therefore poop in the litter more) but I still only have to clean the coop bedding out annually. I will go to semiannually once I enlarge my compost bins.

1" of Zeolite

Wow. That is very thick. You may soon find that your flock loves to dust bathe in it. That is one reason to keep the layer to around 1/4" deep.

 

[Sefirothe]

I use a sand sifter to get some of the bigger small chunks of poo. In the past the juvenile hens I was integrating spent a lot of time hanging out on the poop tray trampling and picking poop piles to bits.

I still mostly use the cat litter scoop but then the finer one gets used when the small bits start to pile up.

Like DobieLover I've never actually stripped the board clean, I just add more PDZ as needed. The lip on my board is only about 1 or 2 inches high and I still have some birds that like to roost on it. I figure not much I can do about it and poop is gonna end up on the floor litter regardless.

 

[Ted Brown]

Not my original idea, rather from the late great @aart (I am certain she is dispensing her many words of wisdom in the open air coop in the sky!)

I use three items to clean my drop boards: a cat litter scoop like the one illustrated; large feed scoop; mesh tray.

I use the litter scoop to pull waste into the feed scoop, dump into mesh tray and shake. Sand or Sweet PDZ falls through back to drop tray. Removes all waste larger than sand grains.

Tray illustration:

View attachment 4265837

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2364071896...RUO7neB0ZDxfaQiM85FYr9dQ==|tkp:Bk9SR9bsiY3jZg

This for illustration only, I found mine at Bed Bath and Beyond but they are now gone.

 

[AntiqueB]

I use an ice scoop.

 

[CabritaChicks]

I found a sand sifter by accident from a friend who likes to collect tiny shells for necklaces..., and then determined it was a reptile cleaner. For small areas (like the poop bar) it is perfect.
https://www.amazon.sg/SUMHEN-Stainless-Mesh，Litter-Sifter，Reptile-Shovel，Reptile/dp/B0BRGZVCXF

This is not exactly the one I bought, but it is similar.

I'm sure you can find just a single one- also check a commercial kitchen store- they have all sorts of goodies that can be applied for chicken lives.

 

[MilesFluffybutt]

Ha! I just started using the reptile sand shifter for litter boxes. Works great to get the small bits of waste out.

 

[Zanja]

Could you remove the edge board they try to perch on and replace it with a strip of thinner wood? Something like a board or another material maybe 1/2" thick, something that would be too thin for them to be comfortable perching on? Plexiglass would be really thin, but it gets expensive.