Coop Poop Disposal

[Doc Schoepp]

As I have been finishing up the last touches on my coop redesign, I have seen an alternative to the classic droppings board. Some designs I have seen with a wire mesh under the roost area so that droppings can fall all the way through to a separate container that slides out for disposal. Has anyone had experience with a similar setup? It seems like it could be slightly easier each day to clean out a catch basin than scraping off a wooden plank. The area the basin slides into would be secured against predators as well as sealed against drafts. Thanks again everyone. Hopefully in the next week I will be sharing the overall concept for critiques/suggestions. There are a lot of 'nice to haves' I am trying to include so we will see how this last week of planning goes.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Well, the theory is good; however, in my experience the poop doesn't drop through the wire but sticks on the wire. Then you've got to bristle brush the wire which is a pain.

The slide out pan was nice, but you've still got to clean it eventually.

I made life a whole lot easier by simply putting cut up used, clean, feed bags down as liner in the coops. My coops are about knee to waist high, depending on the coop (I've got 3). The liner goes over the wood, then the pine shaving sits on top of the liner.

When the shavings are dirty, I then just pull the liner out (usually by rolling a bit like a burrito) and dump the pine shavings and poo.

I also cut liners up for the nest boxes.

Life couldn't be easier. The board underneath stays clean for months.

I do put poultry dust under the liner to prevent any creepy crawlies taking up residence there.

I don't scrap poop off of coops any more, especially not poop boards or worse, wire mesh over pull out poop boards.

LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

...oh, and the absolute best thing to do with coop cleaning is to have as little bend over work as possible and access room.

Keep your floor height about knee high to mid thigh. Make a nice big clean out door that you can easily access all parts of coop.

It is a pain to bend and clean. It is a pain to have to shovel or rake.

Roll and dump.

I deep litter the run with the coop pull out. My hubby either shovels twice a year, or better, we call up our gardening friends who line up with shovels and buckets for our nicely composted deep litter from the runs....you get your runs cleaned for free that way, and they think you are so wonderful to give them that nice, rich compost.

LofMc

 

[Doc Schoepp]

@Lady of McCamley, I was worried about it not going all the way through but wanted to didnt want to just assume and pass up what looked like a decent idea. Droppings do stick to *everything* (even things I didnt know they could poop on).

I like the liner idea and will have to give that a shot in the current coop as well. Right now I am using a small 5-prong hand tool that looks like a cross between a rake and a cultivator to remove waste each morning and then doing a complete bedding change about twice a month or as needed. That is fine for the small coop we have now, but if we expand all the way to the roughly 5x7 footprint we are looking at, that tool will quickly become obsolete.

As far as the compost goes, I am a bit selfish and keep it all.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

These are my coops:

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I lost my photos on BYC, so I have better pics of finished coops, but you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.
LofMc

 

[User395221]

I was worried about it not going all the way through

It works with bunnies, because their (normal) poo is just little balls that goes through the mesh. Chickens would be as Lady of McCamley says.

My chooks just have their roost and they poo on the floor, where I put shavings. I just clean them out with a horse poo collector. They tend to leave a line of poo and you just have to give the line more attention than the rest of the floor. My chooks are outdoor chooks,they just use their house to sleep in and then they are out and about. For chooks who have to stay indoors, I can see why you'd have a "poo collector" but I don't think it's necessary in my setup.

 

[Noaskye]

We use the underbed Rubbermaid containers. They are super easy to clean and removable from the coop to hose out.

 

[ChickenMammX4]

Under the roost there is a poopboard filled with Sweet PDZ. The PDZ neutralizes the odor and absorbs ammonia. i sift it out (using a mesh paper tray) each day and throw the poo on the compost pile. I use a wide putty knife to push the poo into the tray and for any necessary scraping.

The theory of the poo falling through wire mesh to containers below is just that, a theory. Chicken poo is not like rabbit poo, think of golf ball size bird poo

 

[RoosterCogburn7]

As I have been finishing up the last touches on my coop redesign, I have seen an alternative to the classic droppings board. Some designs I have seen with a wire mesh under the roost area so that droppings can fall all the way through to a separate container that slides out for disposal. Has anyone had experience with a similar setup? It seems like it could be slightly easier each day to clean out a catch basin than scraping off a wooden plank. The area the basin slides into would be secured against predators as well as sealed against drafts. Thanks again everyone. Hopefully in the next week I will be sharing the overall concept for critiques/suggestions. There are a lot of 'nice to haves' I am trying to include so we will see how this last week of planning goes.

There is really no wrong way to make a coop as long as their needs are met and they are protected from predators. When I could build coops there was an evolution to them, because I, like you, wanted to build a better 'mouse trap'. I decided to make access to cleaning them out with large doors for wheel barrel access was the way to go for me.