dirt floor or wood floor?

[urbanchicksta]

Hi Everyone,

I'm completely new! It's so nice to find a safe place to talk about chickens. "Chickens....really? Why chickens?" Well after a year of talking about getting chickens, I finally just did it. My Felix Unger-esque husband is still weary about the whole idea and thinks that I'm nuts. I'm the mom of a sweet 2 1/2 year old boy who loves his new chicks and expecting my second this fall (baby human that is). I figure if I don't get this up and running now it will forever be a fleeting thought.

A few weeks ago I came back from the feed store with 3 chicks--1 Brit Red, 1 RIR, and 1 Salmon Favarolle (sp?). My husband was well.....not exactly thrilled, so I told him that there was a chick for each of us and he needed to name his. He refused to name his until I told him the default name would have to be "Beyonce" which I was secretly hoping for anyway since my 2 1/2 year old calling a chicken Beyonce is just too darn cute. He gave in and named his chick "Kick Chick" (a character in a childrens book). Our son's is "Red" and my chick is "Talulah". I think naming the chick, actually worked with the whole bonding thing. A little ownership goes a long way.

So now my brother has just started building our coop and I wish I would have started researching on this forum instead of the out of date library books. I basically started reading as my brother started cutting so you can see how annoying his already annoying little sis was when I came out with a new idea/change of plans every 10 minutes. Basically, our coop is inspired by the "cottage coop" on this website. It's 3 x 4 ft and almost 8 ft tall. I plan on making a separate tractor so they can forage on fresh bits. My question is: should I build a wood floor on the bottom "run area" or just leave it dirt with hardware cloth skirting. It rains a lot here so I was concerned about how the dirt floor would hold up. It's such a small space so should I just
make it a raised solid floor?

any advice is greatly appreciated

 

[BankerJohn]

for your run area, have you considered sand? Think of clean up similar to scooping poop out of kitty litter using the same tools.

In your run, I find that most want to keep smells, flies and moisture as low as possible. All of these are achieved with Sand. Start with a larger 1/4" size rock for a few inches, then cover with landscaping cloth (the kind used to keep weeds in check under mulch). On top of the landscaping cloth, then add a few inches of sand. Now you will have an endless supply of grit and clean up will be very quick. Moisture will percolate through the sand into the voids surrounding the rock, keeping a very nice sandy & dry surface. As a plus, if excess food is scratched out of their feeder onto the sand, both pellets and crumbles can be seen easily by the birds and pecked up.

just my $0.02 that I learned from others here and implemented in my coop. I am grateful I did. Here are some pics before adding the landscape cloth and sand (the best move I have made) besides the auto watering system.

Banker John

 

[urbanchicksta]

Nice pics! That's a good idea. My thoughts now are how to secure against predators. Did you use a concrete border foundation? If I do sand, should I skirt with hardware cloth or dig down? My other thought was using double hardware cloth instead of the weed block cloth to avoid another trip to home depot. My brother is out there now with the saw going. I am already having him re do the nesting boxes. Any thing decisions I make before he finishes would be greatly appreciated.

 

[BankerJohn]

I may be really late on this and your contractor may already have returned from Home Depot.

Yes, the blocks acts as the border and the whole structure is encased in wire for predator protection. Under the blocks and the entire floor of the run, I laid chicken wire then filled with the rock. Anything that attempts to dig under will find wire when the try to come up the other side.

Good luck and take LOTS of pics and post them for us to see

Banker John

 

[adeechickluv]

First,

Next, congrats on the let's-just-go-for-it-and-buy-chickens stage we all went through to start out. And congrats with finding this site. It's a HUGE help!!

I was wondering what to do for the run bottom as well. I am putting the coop on our lawn so they ccan just dig up the grass soon as the little devils get into their new home. So I'm going to have a dirt floor for the run. It's the easiest way, I think. But sand seems like a good choice too.
Good luck on the building!
Adrienne

 

[Gypsi]

I have a dirt floor in mine, formerly lawn, the chickens exterminated the grass and weeds successfully. At the moment it is a mud floor with a significant layer of fertilizer on it from the chickens. Raking it would be very difficult, and it is reaching an unsanitary level. I'm liking the gravel/weedblock/sand idea before I get the weight of a whole chicken coop on the support frame I have out there. Since I brought in a pile of gravel for another reason, I have the heaviest part of the material. Weedblock I can get. Time is tough to manufacture, but the whole thing needs an overhaul as soon as I get time, energy and good weather.

I have a roll of heavy guage 2x4 fencing in the garage that is 5 foot high, that will let me dig chicken wire in, or do as suggested and just lay chicken wire UNDER the weedblock and gravel, much less digging, and start from the bottom up. I'm revising my design today to incorporate a lot of what I learned. I have dry wood in the garage, but I won't be able to get the frame out of the garage door to the back yard easily, and I sure can't attach anything to the wet framing that is out there. It will be easier to cut and frame it all out at one time, so today is for more research. It looks like a lot of these coops are framed out with just 2x2. I'm obviously used to working on a house that uses 2x4 and 2x6 wood. I'll post a new planning pic and explanation in a few minutes.

Gypsi.

 

[Wiglwerm]

I had a dirt floor in my coop up until a few days ago when I put down a layer of fine river sand. This is the best thing I EVER did. I am a freak on keep the coop clean, and although it was not a huge undertaking I notice with the sand there does not appear to be that gucky wet poo. The sand absorbs it quickly which has kept the flies at a minimum (I was worried that they would be out of control in the summer) and I bought a kitty litter scoop and was done cleaning up in half the time!! The flies have been significantly reduced also. I am going into the back property tomorrow to get another wheelbarrow full of sand for my other pen. I think wood floors would be a BIG pain to keep clean, if you go with wood you should but linoleum over it so you can clean it easier. GOOD LUCK, and welcome to the wonderful world of CHICKENS!!!

 

[urbanchicksta]

Not too late--still working on it. He did the roof (not shown) , door and ammendments. We still need to

find exact location
paint interior ( is that really that necessary)
lay down vinyl
bottom floor hardware wire/ door
re do nest boxes
stain and seal cedar roof
foundation of bottom run with rocks and sand
roost bar and/or poop bar
additional vent
change door hinges from brass to chrome


and about a dozen other things that I'll probably add or change by logging on to byc

I'll post more pics as they come...