Coop Spring cleaning-made easy

[desertgirl]

My terribly clever DH made our girls a great little coop last spring, and this year's spring cleaning was a snap thanks to the removable wall he designed into it. Just remove, spray down with high pressure nozzle, dry (drain holes in the floor assist with this), add straw, and viola!


After removing the back wall:

Inspection from the troops!

The entire cleaning took about an hour.

 

[Joyryder]

WOW that's great!

Do you have plans to share?
Joanne

 

[buffbeauty]

Isn't it great! Instead of a wall that comes off, my coop has multiple doors that open for clean out. The multiple doors also nice since my pullets still haven't figured out the appropriate place too lay eggs is the nesting boxes not the poo pan under the roost or the back corner or the middle of the floor! Another nice idea in my coop is a tub that slides in under the roost so all you have to do is open a drop down door, slide out the tub (approx 6"Hx18"Wx36"L) and dump it. It's just a rubbermaid type tote so can be hosed out really easy too if needed. 3rd thing I did was linoleum the floor of the coop so it could be swept/hosed alot easier without the poo soaking into the wood floor. Thanks Jim for my awesome first chicken coop!

 

[desertgirl]

I agree! DH also made the "poop trays"-he used sheet metal and fabricated them somehow so that they just slide in and out. I knew he was smart when I married him-glad we got chickens so that I could discover he's a flippin' genious. Cute, too!

 

[desertgirl]

Quote:
Unfortunately he just whipped it up from inside his purdy head. I'll see if I can get him to write something down, and if so I'll post it.

 

[elmo]

Great idea. When I look at coop designs, the first thing I think about is how easy is it going to be to get in there and clean it out? The harder it is to clean your coop, the more tempted you may be to let that job slide...until things get really nasty in there.

The other thing nice about that removable wall is that should you find it's getting too hot inside your coop in the summer time, it would be very easy to make a hardware cloth covered panel to swap out in place of the solid wall.

Flexible design, love it!