Coop floor - dirt versus vinyl or rhino coat

[Birdinhand]

my coop is two stories, the upper is lined with shower stall liner from home depot, it's made of recycled plastic and is very durable and relatively cheap. we use the top floor for meat birds and brooders. the bottom floor is dirt. there are pros and cons to both. our layers prefer having a good base to dig into and a nice sandy dirt to dust and sun in. As long as the dirt is covered and kept dry, it's probably the best for the birds, IMHO.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

I strongly recommend having the floor just be dirt. Do deep litter - WAAAAAY less maintenance, and no smell. Birds love it. If you're on bare dirt, just make sure you have a hardware cloth apron around the edges so nothing can dig in.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

This is a good thread to read through:

Deep litter method

- Ant Farm

 

[Chickenrunlady]

We are building are first coop and one of the first questions is what to use for the floor. The coop I grew up with in Montana was an old log cabin on top of dirt. I remember it being a pain to clean. I've seen several designs where folks are putting linoleum or vinyl down on top of a wood floor. I've also seen some coops where they have used rhino coat for the same purpose. The idea is that you can just sweep them out.

The current parameters on the coop are:

8x12 structure
Building will look like an old log cabin
If a dirt floor we will build a cement / rock exterior foundation otherwise we will put it up on a pier and beam wood base floor
The structure will be inside a sealed aviary. We live in Austin, Tx and have every known chicken predator on our property.
We currently have 8 chicks, but plan to max out around 10.

Thanks for any advice.

Rubber mat used in horses stall, they come in different thickness
. Easy to clean. TSC carries them.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

I built this coop almost 2 years ago. Although there is an enclosed hen house, the silly buggers roost out in the open part every night. I have not needed to clean it once - just have added dry stuff every once and a while. They LOVE it - they are out ranging now, but when they're in, they love digging through it looking for treats, dust bathing, etc.