Coop Floor

[MelindaK]

My husband is building my coop (yippie

), and I am wondering about if the floor needs to be painted and if so with what. I would like to use the deep litter method. Thank you for any responses.

This is a GREAT forum for us new chicken people (my 6 Peeps are 3 weeks old).

 

[patandchickens]

This is a plywood floor? I would suggest priming and painting it with semi-gloss paint as the best solution. Alternatively you can use deck sealer (takes a few days or even a week or longer to really TOTALLY dry, so I am not keen on it) or multiple coats of polyurethane (multiple coats is a nuisance, but just 1-2 will not last well). Any of these things will retard rot and make the floor easier to clean, sicne no matter what you do there will sometimes be bare spots scratched in the bedding such that poo gets directly on the plywood.

Alternatively you can lay down vinyl flooring, which many BYCers are highly keen on but which IMHO is really no better than paint in most situations and in some situations can become more of a rot-trap. (I say this speaking as someone who *has* some vinyl flooring, not b/c I installed it but just because that's the way things were when I got here). So you can consider it when people suggest it but if you choose not to do it you will not be missing anything overwhelmingly wonderful

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[jennh]

I have vinyl, and I

it! I just use a grain shovel, and it scoops right up. Kinda like your teflon pans. I would suggest you run it up the walls where they roost, also, because it DOES get on the walls where they roost. I'm speaking from experience. (that is unless your roosts are far enough from the walls, then this wouldn't be necessary).

Jen

 

[Backyard_Chicken_rancher]

I agree with Jen walls and floor with Vinyl you can pick up a rement for cheap at a local flooring store or lowes and homedepot but I would cover it all the way up and you want to save a few bucks paint the floor and use the vinyl on the wall behind the roost it will get messy trust that...

Good luck to you and hubby

congratz on the new

be sure to post pics of the coop when he is done or all during we love to see pics of the during after and when the girls are in their new home.

 

[MelindaK]

Thanks!!! We have a lot of left over cans of paint when we moved in, I'll have to see what we have. Would like to do vinyl, but best use what we have. (However I know I'm going to go looking at Home Depot now.) We have some vinyl squares, but don't think that would be good to use bc of gaps with squares.

After he had most of the coop built, I was thinking I should have taken pictures. I'll take a few now and then see if I can figure out how to post them.

Thank you very much for your responses!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[RocketDad]

I was going to use vinyl but ran out of money, so I used a can of paint to get things done. I'm glad, now, because the vinyl would be all torn up from shovel/rake cleaning, and then it would be a pain to fix.

Paint. I'd do it again like this. Of all the mistakes I made on my coop. this isn't one of them. I used white oil-based enamel. I slathered it on so thick the roller wouldn't even spin - it was like a round squeegee. I let it dry for several days before messing with it again. It's a thick tough coat, and I can touch up where it's gotten doinked. The only thing I might do differently would be to spend the extra for epoxy garage-floor paint. Maybe.