Coop cleaning and general care

[fluffybuthut]

Hello BYC!

I'm so glad I got into this hobby, however I just want more and more chickens haha! I love being a chook mama.

Just wondering what material you fill your coops with (hay, pine shavings etc)? And also how often you clean the coop out?

Also, is there anything that you wish you knew when you were starting out that you now know which is helpful to raising chickens?

Thanks - and here are a few pics of my (hopefully female) chooks!! (4 Orpington's and 2 Silkie's)

 

[gimmie birdies]

I am not a fan of wood shavings, I go with straw.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I spent the morning and afternoon, cleaning my coop, and working on pens. And took stuff to the dump. I also hung a door.

 

[fluffybuthut]

I am not a fan of wood shavings, I go with straw.

Thanks and how often do you clean it out and put new straw in?

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I use wood shavings and straw depending on how cold it is. I like wood shavings because I can scoop the coop like a litter box every morning. Once a week I toss the litter with PDZ and First Saturday Lime and add more bedding material. Once a month or so I change it all out as needed.
I wish I had known to have emergency supplies on hand when I first started out. Things like antibiotic ointment, bag balm, corid, vitamins & eloctrolytes, nutridrench are all good to have on hand if you need so you can treat wounds & illnesses right away

 

[fluffybuthut]

I use wood shavings and straw depending on how cold it is. I like wood shavings because I can scoop the coop like a litter box every morning. Once a week I toss the litter with PDZ and First Saturday Lime and add more bedding material. Once a month or so I change it all out as needed.
I wish I had known to have emergency supplies on hand when I first started out. Things like antibiotic ointment, bag balm, corid, vitamins & eloctrolytes, nutridrench are all good to have on hand if you need so you can treat wounds & illnesses right away

Thanks so much for the info, very good to know!

P.S. - love the pug!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum from Louisiana, glad you joined.

wondering what material you fill your coops with (hay, pine shavings etc)? And also how often you clean the coop out?

This depends a whole lot on your unique situation. What does your coop look like, how many chickens, how you manage them, things like that. Some people do some cleaning every day, some every week, some of us maybe once or twice a year. In the coop, some people use wood shavings, wood chips, hay, straw, sand, or dirt. Some people turn their coop into a compost pile so they can use unexpected things.

I use wood shavings in the coop and totally clean it out every two to three years, not because I need to but I want that stuff on my garden. I use droppings boards and put the poop from those in my compost pile as needed, anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks. My overwinter laying/breeding flock is one rooster and 6 to 8 hens but during the peak summer season I have over 50 chickens of varying sizes, most growing to butcher size. My main coop is 8' x 12', I have two other shelters that are 4' x 8', and I have over 3,000 square feet available to them outside.

 

[fluffybuthut]

Hi, welcome to the forum from Louisiana, glad you joined.


This depends a whole lot on your unique situation. What does your coop look like, how many chickens, how you manage them, things like that. Some people do some cleaning every day, some every week, some of us maybe once or twice a year. In the coop, some people use wood shavings, wood chips, hay, straw, sand, or dirt. Some people turn their coop into a compost pile so they can use unexpected things.

I use wood shavings in the coop and totally clean it out every two to three years, not because I need to but I want that stuff on my garden. I use droppings boards and put the poop from those in my compost pile as needed, anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks. My overwinter laying/breeding flock is one rooster and 6 to 8 hens but during the peak summer season I have over 50 chickens of varying sizes, most growing to butcher size. My main coop is 8' x 12', I have two other shelters that are 4' x 8', and I have over 3,000 square feet available to them outside.

Thanks so much!

I only have 6 chickens, only 4 in the coop. Still young at 6-7 weeks. And at the moment I fill the coop with pine shavings.

I'd like to turn the cleaned out shavings and poop into compost. So thinking to maybe clean out and replace every month or so?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Why do you want to clean the coop to start with? Why not just let it go? I don't enjoy cleaning out the coop, I want to know why I'm cleaning when I do.

One reason might be is that the poop builds up so fast that it stays wet. It never dries out. Wet poop can be unhealthy and can stink, dry poop is usually not a problem. That's one purpose of bedding, to dry out the poop. Chickens poop all the time wherever they are. During the day they are usually walking around so it gets scattered. That's one advantage of having enough room outside so they don't stay in the coop that much during the day. At night on the roost they are not moving around so the poop can build up under the roosts. This poop is usually what you need to deal with.

There are different strategies to deal with this. Some of us collect that poop and remove it from the coop, maybe using some type of "droppings board or hammock" or just collect it with a shovel or rake. Lots of different techniques for this. Some mix it with the rest of the bedding in the coop so it can dry out, either raking it themselves or scattering scratch on the poop so the chickens scatter it for you as they are scratching for the scratch. Some even turn their coop floor into a compost pile and mix the poop right in. Others may turn their run into a compost pile.

To me that's the main reason to clean, so the poop does not build up to the point that it stays wet which makes it unhealthy and stink. Other people have other reasons. We all have our preferences and desires. Some people seem to have a compulsion to clean, whether it needs it or not. Whatever makes them happy.

Personally I don't like to step in fresh poop, get it on my hands or in my hair. With my set-up that's not a big problem but with some set-ups it might be. We are all unique in how we are set up.

You say you want the compost. Excellent, so do I. When you compost it's best to have a balanced of browns and greens. The poop is considered a green, the bedding a brown. Wood shavings are slower than many other possible beddings to break down but they eventually will if moisture and greens levels are right. They aren't as bad as some people seem to think if the balance with greens is pretty good and the moisture is right. One potential problem to make that less efficient is that you can add so many shavings by cleaning out so often that the amount of browns overwhelms the greens and it really is agonizingly slow. And the total volume can really build up to where it is hard to manage.

The way I manage that is to have a "droppings board" under the roosts and collect the pure poop to go straight into the compost pile. Some people clean under the roosts on a daily basis, often scooping the poop out of some type of tray with sand, PDZ, or something else to make it easy to scoop. I don't. My droppings boards are just flat pieces of plywood that I scrape off whenever I need to. When my numbers of chickens sleeping in there is pretty low and the weather is dry that might be every six weeks. If the numbers of chickens is up and the humidity is up I may do that once a week. If it ever starts to stink I waited too long. Over the years I've learned when I need to.

By removing the excess poop and keeping the coop really dry I basically never have to remove the bedding. I just add to it as it gets shredded. When I do remove it it's always in the fall and I put that stuff directly in the garden. I till it in and by spring it's ready to plant.

My main coop is an 8' x 12' with a dirt floor and it stays extremely dry. The chickens spend practically all day every day outside, not in the coop. This method works for me. If you have one of those small elevated coops you are in a totally different situation. My grow-out coop has a hardware cloth floor so the poop falls straight through where I collect it before it builds up too bad. My built-in brooder has a hardware cloth floor so the poop falls through there, keeps it dry. I try to keep saying that we are all unique with out own unique methods because we are all unique and different methods work for different people.

I'm sure your situation is different from mine. I envision you with having a small elevated coop that may be hard to put some type of droppings board in and have access though I'm sure many people on here have done exactly that. If we knew what your coop looked like we might be able to tell you how others handle cleaning that coop. The more we know about your set-up and conditions the more likely we can actually help you.

 

[fluffybuthut]

Hi, welcome to the forum from Louisiana, glad you joined.


This depends a whole lot on your unique situation. What does your coop look like, how many chickens, how you manage them, things like that. Some people do some cleaning every day, some every week, some of us maybe once or twice a year. In the coop, some people use wood shavings, wood chips, hay, straw, sand, or dirt. Some people turn their coop into a compost pile so they can use unexpected things.

I use wood shavings in the coop and totally clean it out every two to three years, not because I need to but I want that stuff on my garden. I use droppings boards and put the poop from those in my compost pile as needed, anywhere from 1 to 6 weeks. My overwinter laying/breeding flock is one rooster and 6 to 8 hens but during the peak summer season I have over 50 chickens of varying sizes, most growing to butcher size. My main coop is 8' x 12', I have two other shelters that are 4' x 8', and I have over 3,000 square feet available to them outside.

Thanks so much