Coop floor redo

[carollight]

Hello, I am new to this forum and have been raising chickens for 2 wonderful, fun filled years. They are in a secure run with a coop at one end. The interior is about 3' x 16' with next boxes on the exterior of one side. It is raised about 2' off the ground. My husband built it with a gang plank so that the chickens can walk up into it for roosting and nesting. The coop "floor" is chicken wire so that the poop can drop through to the ground for clean up, there are a couple 2x4s that run the width of the interior. After 2 years, the chicken wire has failed however some girls still manage to get to the far end to their favorite nest box. Should the chicken wire be replaced (to fail again in 2 years) with more chicken wire? Or what are other good options so that they can move easily inside to get to roosts and nests? Is a floor in the coop needed since the run is secure? Thanks in advance for your help and for all the great info posted on this site!

 

[eviemethugh]

Search for some info on the deep litter method in the forums.
You can use the ground if it won't get wet during a rain storm, or build a little floor for the bedding to go on.
We dump a few bag of pine bedding to fill the coop several inches thick. Then as they poop, they also stir the bedding to turn it into a nice smelling compost. We empty and replace this bedding about twice a year, and add another bag on to the top another two times. That's it! You have want to stir it after the first few weeks if your girls haven't quite caught on yet, but as it becomes more comfy in their coop compared to the chicken wire they will spend more time in there and stir it themselves. The shavings I just scooped out this weekend were so fine and already composted that it could honestly go straight into a garden. It didn't even look like poo, and very few shavings were left that were large. But we mix ours in a barrel with food scraps and weeds and leaves and water it.
Anyway if you search for deep litter method there will be more ideas and how different people do slightly different things.

 

[carollight]

Thanks, I will look into deep bedding some more. I think I wasn't clear enough, the chickens have roosts that they mostly use (a few choose to sleep out side), they only used the chicken wire to walk on to access the roost bars and nests that are farther away from the door. I am wondering if it's best to replace the wire with wire, or with something else or will they simply walk under the coop and jump/fly to where they want to get to?