cleaning coop and run

[hetty]

hi, We have had our 4 chickens for one month now and the last 2 weeks have had to stay in the run due to building work going on. L,m cleaning the coop every day by removing the poo from the top of hemp and adding a new layer of hemp everyday and at night I,m cleaning the poo from the run, as it had grass that has turn into a mud area and will be getting tons of sand soon, to put that right. my compost bin is nearly full. my question is am I doing too much cleaning?
As someone on here said that they only clean out run with woodchip every 2 weeks, sand every 6 months.

 

[geojane42]

We have 4.5 chickens (that's a story for another thread). I clean out the hen house every morning. We have linoleum on the poop board and on the floor so its just a simple matter of scraping into the bucket. We have sand in the run and I clean that out by sifting through some wire mesh every few days. Works really well. So all that makes it into our compost is poop and a few leftover veggie scraps. Takes about 1 minute to clean the hen house and 10 minutes to clean the run. Because there's sand in the run, there's always a little sand in the henhouse so between that and a bit of shavings that fall out of the nesting box, I can 'scrub' the floor quickly with my gardening gloves after I've picked up the poop.

We used to have shavings in the henhouse and in the run but it was way too messy and difficult to clean. Now we only have shavings in the nesting boxes.

 

[CityChook]

wow. You guys are working way too hard.

I have deep litter (pine shavings about 6 inches deep) inside the coop and sand in the run. I rake the run out maybe once a month in the summer, never in the winter. I change out the litter in the coop in the Spring (May) and Fall (October). That's it. I'm a little kooky when it comes to cleanliness in the coop, but this is enough even for me.

 

[FlyingFChick]

That sounds like enough cleaning to me CityChook!!

I've been thinking that I am going to do the same. I would imagine that if you have poop boards under your roost that the coop floor shouldn't be too bad! Nothing a little layer of shavings can't fix!

 

[teach1rusl]

I'm a daily cleaner in my coop. It's not working hard for me; it takes literally a minute a day to scrape off my dropping board and toss a handful of bedding up there. I recently did a bedding toss (my winter bedding), and will do another late fall. I rake the run about once a week, but my girls are out on the property a lot, so there's usually not much in there. I just like things clean since I spend a lot of time with them.