cleaning sand bedding

[Mrwinchester]

OK I've read that people can just fly through cleaning sand in there brooders,coops,runs ext. It takes me a good hour to do mine. I find i have to sift right to the bottom and remove wet spots and droppings, I've tried raking it but it didn't seem to get everything. My brooder is approximately 100 sq feet. I'm a fast thorough worker and I've even made some pretty efficient tools to clean . I don't know how you can pull it off. I'm thinking i should reduce the amount of sand to around two inches to at least speed it up some what. Am I being way to annal or should i drink a couple red bulls before i start ?? Any ideas would be appreciated thanks.

 

[LBKS]

I have a 4'x8' brooder right now, sub-divided to smaller chicks (in less than 1/4 of the brooder) and bigger chicks (about 5 weeks old). I have about 3" of sand in the bottom and like you struggled with SLOW cleaning times. I think the trick is all about your scoop.

I started with a cat litter scoop, which just did not catch all the small bits from the chicks. Then I found a "scoop" that looked like it would get the small stuff but still sift my sand out -- which it got all the small stuff plus some of the larger pebbles in the sand. Since it was really a draining kitchen spoon, it sucked for cleaning, it just could not sift much at once. I got 1/4" hardware cloth and put it over the first scoop as a compromise to try and catch more with it -- works better but still not fine enough.

I think the best bet is to get a good sized scoop base with large gaps, be it a cat litter scoop, a barn fork, etc and then cover it with two offset layers of 1/4" hardware cloth. If there's 1/8" hardware cloth out there, that'd do the trick I think (I haven't checked though).

With the 'ol cat scoop I could get the whole brooder done in a few minutes -- but it didn't get it very clean. This worked better for the bigger chicks.

With the kitchen spoon/sift it'd take me 3 hours or so (no joke). This was pretty much the only way to clean the small chick section.

With the cat scoop + hardware cloth it takes me maybe 30 minutes but isn't as clean as I'd like. This works better overall for both chick sections.

I'm guessing with the second layer of hardware cloth, when I apply it, it should take about 30 minutes to scoop still but work a heck of a lot better. Really the speed seems tied to the relative size of your scoop to the task -- bigger scoops just plain sift more sand at a time.

Long term, since I want sand in the coop, I'm guessing I'll just take a plastic bucket of appropriate size, cut it to scoop shape, cut out all of the plastic along the side of the bucket and attach two offset layers of 1/4" hardware cloth, then put a handle on what used to be the bottom of the bucket. That'll give the scoop a lot of sifting power and the fine grain catching that it really needs.

Really though, I'm guessing this is more an issue for the babies - they have droppings to match their diminutive size.

 

[graciesmum]

In my coop I have link down, then on top of that I hqve mushroom boxes, then I have sand, I just pick up boxes and shake then rake to put boxes back, takes me 10 mins, my coop is 6ft by 5ft and I have 5 hybrids 18 months old

 

[graciesmum]

Sorry lino not link lol

 

[Mrwinchester]

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• Location: Ottawa Ontario
• Joined: 5/2013
• Posts: 82
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Scoop-zilla. I needed a quicker alternative to sifting sand in the brooder. It's the top off a 5 gallon jug. I used garden screen from the dollar store ,it's twice as large as window screen. and just used zip ties to fasten it all together. much quicker than a kitty litter scoop

Update. I was having trouble moving around in the brooder within the cardboard barrier i constructed so yesterday i took down the wall. now they have 3 times the space and i was able to scoop the even now larger brooder in half the time as before, also they are two weeks old and actually are starting to way more solid droppings much easier than the wet icky baby poo

i think the next batch of chicks i will use a little less sand I'm finding i have to dig down to the floor and not just scrape the surface, I'm thinking maybe 1.5 inches would be lots of sand and allot less sifting.

Edited by Mrwinchester - 5/16/13 at 7:14am


This is a post of the scoop i made, also im using a sifter that is about 1.5x2 feet square with the same screen in it i'll post pictures soon

 

[LBKS]

Scoopzilla is pretty close to what I was imagining doing with a small bucket - the shape of a milk jug is great though! Does the jug top handle the sand weight very well? And nice find about the garden screen - you don't so much need the strength of the hardware cloth but I couldn't figure out a good mesh that was open enough!

 

[duckman14]

An old pool skimmer works great too

 

[Going Quackers]

I was going to say what about a strainer? you know like for pasta? at least for the brooder lol I wonder if reptile gear has anything that would work??

 

[Mrwinchester]

Scoopzilla is pretty close to what I was imagining doing with a small bucket - the shape of a milk jug is great though! Does the jug top handle the sand weight very well? And nice find about the garden screen - you don't so much need the strength of the hardware cloth but I couldn't figure out a good mesh that was open enough!

it's actually the to off a 5 gal jug it's quite large.

 

[LBKS]

it's actually the to off a 5 gal jug it's quite large.

I guess that's what I get for looking on a mobile device That thing really must be huge!