Coop gems -what is the one feature of your coop you couldnt live without?

[Dmaggot]

@Dmaggot my girls would be over that Dutch door in half a second!

Ha ha, same for my leghorn. The rest are too lazy I think

 

[rosemarythyme]

@Dmaggot my girls would be over that Dutch door in half a second!

Meanwhile mine don't bother escaping from a 1' tall wire rack fence that sits in front of the run door... yes I've forgotten to close up the run so when I notice hours later, the chickens are all still staring at me behind their obviously impossible-to-cross, 1' tall barrier...

 

[OlympicChick]

My coop is bare basics really (!), so I would have to say the dirt floor (DLM). I do almost no work on it at all and there is zero smell . I believe in easy

 

[sunnie7]

Best thing since sliced bread...

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Can you tell me the size of your poop boards and how you did your spacing from wall and between the 2 roosts?! Also which automatic door do you have and do you like it?!

 

[Farmgirl1878]

Each of the poop decks is about 4’ x 6’ and fit up against the back and side walls. There is a small 4” gap between the decks and the back and side walls because of the 2”x4” construction, but it’s not too bad in terms of danger to the adult birds or “misplaced” poop. Since the flooring is sand too, I just scoop the bits that fall through the cracks. The lowest deck is about 14-16” off the floor, so everyone, even my big Brahma and Cochin can hop up. The lowest roost is about 16l off the deck and the higher one is about another 16” up. The higher poop deck is probably 4’ off the floor and the roosts are at about the same heights. The distance from the wall to the upper roost is about 12” and from the wall to the lower roost is about 24”.

The pop door is a JVR brand door. Works great, easy to set, and works well in my set up. Hubby got it at Amazon. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HRT5WD2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[0die]

An integrated brooder section would be nice. or a quick way to partition off a small section for baby chicks to begin integration.

 

[Percheron chick]

Walk in door.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

An integrated brooder section would be nice. or a quick way to partition off a small section for baby chicks to begin integration.

I love that I can easily section off the area under the poop decks to give the chicks a 4’ x 12’ area. Makes it a lot easier to integrate.

 

[My2butterflies]

I have a question. The sand under the roosts and on the floor... does that need to be completely replaced or just rake up the poop and add more sand as it’s slowly removed? I’m very curious.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

@My2butterflies, I scoop poop twice a day (usually only once in the coop as they don’t spend a lot of time in there), so the sand stays pretty clean. I add a bad of Sweet PDZ every once in a while when the level on the poop deck seems to need it. I’ve not had to add any on the floor of the coop or in the run yet. I think we will probably get a dump truck load of natural, coarse river sand this summer and shovel some more in the run. The girls are pretty messy when they scratch around and dust bathe, so quite a bit of sand ends up outside the run. That whole area is sand covered, so it’s not a big deal, but I’d like to get the rototiller in the run and mix everything up then add a ton or two more to freshen it up in there.