Coop cleaning and general care

[WILIFORD]

I prefer straw for bedding. My chickens free range on a 1/2 acre. I clean out there hen house about every 6 months or so. I use a deep bedding method, so about every 2 months I cultivate the old bedding, sprinkle with barn lime and DE, wet down lightly then add a new layer of straw. It makes great compost when its cleaned out. I have 15 hens and 3 roosters. all Dominiques. Their hen house is about 6'X6'. I will be adding about 6 more hens soon.
I can't think of anything I wish I knew before I started. I'm not claiming to know everything, far from it, but before I started I read several books on raising chickens, some of them I read two, or three times. Maybe one thing I didn't expect, is how much they dig. A litter of puppies can't hold a candle to a flock of chickens when it comes to digging

 

[Broxi]

I use pine shavings in the hen house and excelsior aspen pads in the nest boxes. The run is dirt and mulch, but I've never really cleaned it out. The girls also free range my yard and only get locked up if I've had wanderers, new layers, or go on vacation. They were going over the fence to meet up with the neighbor boy ( the hussys ) after I rehomed my two roosters and one got hit by a car in the road, so they got the lock up for 6 weeks after that. I generally clean the hen house when it seems like it could use it. The frequency is increasing as I increase the number of chickens I have of course. My goal is to only clean it twice a year, but I'm doubling my flock this spring and I'm sure it'll have to be at least quarterly until I cull my flock after everyone starts laying this coming fall/winter.

 

[bhaberlie]

How often should we change the bedding for new baby chicks less then a week old? Also how often should there food and water be changed if at all? We have ducks and we had to constantly change their’s because they would fowl it up. Chickens appear to be a lot cleaner.

 

[K0k0shka]

I use pine shavings in the coop. I have a 5x7 walk-in coop with 7 standard size chickens in it. I don't use poop boards, because I don't want to have to clean them every day. In general I've set up my coop so that I have to only do minimal cleaning. I have better things to do with my life than clean sh** So it's a thick layer of pine shavings, which I clean out twice a year. The rest of the time I occasionally throw some more clean shavings on top if the poop to shavings ratio starts skewing too far towards poop. Usually after the first 3 months, and then once a month after that until clean-out time. This works very well for me. No problems with wetness, smell, etc. I do throw down some PDZ occasionally, though honestly I can't say for sure if it works or not. It's sort of as a preventative. I really like this method.

I do even less outside in the run. I keep it covered with a generous amount of plant matter - wood chips, dry leaves, grass clippings, etc. which I add to periodically. It composts in place and the chickens do a great job of stirring it around. It doesn't smell or look poopy. I've never cleaned the run.

 

[Grandmoi]

When I had free range hens, ( and a large coop) I collected bags of dry leaves every fall, even begged them from neighbors. I used them for deep bedding along with straw ..not hay.. I cleaned the coop weekly in summer and monthly in Winter..only because I like a very clean coop for my girls and if you leave layer upon layer of bedding in a coop for a year in a good-sized coop you might need an axe to break it up. I'm too lazy for that chore. Now that I'm planning a vertical coop and a mere handful of hens which cannot free range, I'll use straw & leaves on a vinyl floor and change it out weekly , tossing it in the compost for next year's garden. .

 

[Lor]

We use sand because it's easy enough to scoop the poop. We use a long handled scoop (wish we had bought them from the beginning) and a pail with a handle to put it in. Every few months we turn the sand over/rake it and add sweet pdz. Twice in the 4yrs we added more sand. It's a thick layer. Softer landing.
Our hens don't spend much time in the coop. Locked up at night and only to lay eggs during the day. We live in a warmer climate.

I hate our coop. If I could go back in time I would have tried harder to convince my husband we needed a walk in. It was made from my daughter's wooden swing set with a tree house. You can't stand up in there. Because I'm short the floor of the coop is chest height for me. I need a ladder to crawl through the door for cleaning. Pooper scooping daily with the long handled scoop is easy enough, though.

 

[Ridgerunner]

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

How often should we change the bedding for new baby chicks less then a week old? Also how often should there food and water be changed if at all?

Have you read the rest of this thread? You might get some answers there. I'm thinking mostly about the brooder on this but it also applies to the coop when they get older.

The main answer to your questions is that it depends. The purpose of the bedding is mostly to absorb moisture from the poop. The bedding needs to be dry. If it gets wet you need to change it plus figure out how it is getting wet and fix that. They poop a lot. If the poop gets thick enough it won't dry out. That's another time to change the bedding. Sometimes you can delay changing the bedding out by mixing the bedding and poop so the poop is not in clumps.

Changing out food is a little harder to talk about as we feed different ways. What you don't want is for the food to stay wet or it will mold. Some people wet their feed before they serve it, many of us don't. If you do, they need to eat all of it before you feed more or clean it out before it molds. They can and will poop in some of the feeders. As long as it is dry that really doesn't hurt them but I have my limits as to how much poop I leave in there. That's sort of a judgment call, a little is not a reason to get excited. Some people use feeders where the feed stays dry and they cannot poop in it. They may go for a long time before they change out any feed, they just refill it. In addition to pooping in it sometimes they can scratch bedding in the feeder. That's not a big deal unless they fill it up to the point they can't separate the bedding from the food. You want to minimize this if you can.

The water needs to stay clean. That's the important thing, clean water. Some people use methods, such as nipples, where they cannot poop in the water or scratch trash in the water. As far as the chicks or chickens go you don't have to change that water out. If they poop in the water or scratch trash or bedding in it you need to change the water out at least once a day so bad microbes don't reproduce in there. Sometimes it can get really nasty, once a day may not be enough. The important thing is clean water.

Another thing with water is that if mosquitoes can get to it they will breed in it. If you dump the water every couple of days the mosquito wigglers can't mature.

 

[Byrd gal]

I wish i had put in an attic fan with a thermostat the first time in the coop. And cleaning the coop with vinegar is a money saver.

 

[K0k0shka]

And cleaning the coop with vinegar is a money saver.

Why would you need to clean the coop with vinegar? Or anything else liquid. Shoveling/scraping the poop and dirty bedding out is enough, there's no need to actually sanitize it.

 

[Grandmoi]

I wish i had put in an attic fan with a thermostat the first time in the coop. And cleaning the coop with vinegar is a money saver.

???? why use vinegar???