Coop floor/litter cleaning

[dhughes]

Hi, I'm working on a custom coop design for my 12 new chicks. Following the advice I've read, I've allowed for about 3sq ft per chicken in the coop. The coop therefore is about 6'x6'. I've taken pretty much everything into account including accessing eggs, doors, ventilation, etc. However, I'm trying to figure out what to do about the floor. I really don't want to be climbing into the coop to clean it out. And I think cleaning it through a door on the side would be difficult. Knowing me, the easier I make this to do the more likely it is to be done.

I've seen smaller coops with floors that slide out for cleaning. However, with a 6x6 floor, I'm thinking that creating a drawer system thats strong enough to hold all that weight might be pretty difficult. So, with that in mind, do you have any suggestions on creative ways or custom designs to make cleaning the floor easier? I've thought about a 1x4 that would sit against the back wall and would be attached to a long rod I could use to pull all the bedding and poop into an open edge or something. (That may not be the clearest description there, I can elaborate if needed.)

What do you do? Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks for the help!

Doug

 

[Truevalentine]

Are you going to have access from more than one side? I didn't design my coop, but it has larger doors on either side that I can swing up both for egg collection and floor cleaning. I reach most from one side and sweep it out then to to the other side to get the rest .

 

[dhughes]

not really. at least it's not in the plans yet. If you can imagine, my run will be about 9' x 9' with the coop taking up the lower right corner if looking from above. So, from outside the run I'll only have access to two walls, the back and the right side. The right side has the door I mentioned in it. The left side (which is inside the run) is only ventilation. I didn't plan to be going into the run very often. Obviously I can rework my plans, but I'm really trying to make this as simple and clean as possible to clean. That way I have fewer reasons to put it off. And trust me, I'm bad like that!