After raising a lot of kids, I've finally gotten to where poop---anybody's poop---doesn't really bother me. Not that I want it tracked through the house, but hey, everything washes
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My 10 hens free range over our acre of fenced land, but for some reason they really like to hang out where the kids and dog play, closer to the house. So every couple of days, either I (if I feel like creating a quiet moment for myself) or one of the kids will go out and do a turd patrol. I take a sturdy plastic bucket and a little garden trowel, and cruise the yard looking for chicken doods. Lay the edge of the bucket on the ground next to the dood, and use the trowel to flick it in. It's much easier than trying to scoop with a shovel.
I use pine shavings in my coop. I lay a 4-6" layer on the floor, and then use a kitty litter shovel/rake thing to do a quick mini-turd patrol in the coop when I let the hens out in the morning. It really only takes about 5 minutes, and then I dump the doods and shavings in the compost bin.
The kids are pretty good about taking off their shoes or just avoiding the chicken doods, but I do have to check the dog before she comes in the house; she's not at all averse to rolling in chicken poo, laying in chicken poo, walking in chicken poo, and eating chicken poo (this is partly why dogs do not kiss me. Ever.). So she gets a quick wipe of the paws and a coat/breath check.
I was actually surprised to find how little work it is to keep the chicken odors down to a minimum, and to keep the house pretty free of evidence of chicken (other than the cartons and cartons of multi-colored eggs in the fridge; yay!
Joni in CA
. In MN we have alot of humidity and it stunk to high heaven!!!! I found that I was cleaning the coop everyday just to keep the smell and the flies down. We then tried the pine shavings and we will use that for ever. We change out half the shavigns twice a year. We just scoup of the top layer and put that a side and take out the bottom. The bottom stuff goes right in to the compost pile in the spring and the fall stuff goes right into the garden to be worked right in. We have 22 chickens in a 12x14 coop that is inside an old dairy barn. As long as I mix the shavigns up everyday I have little to no smell and very little fly problem. The main key to it is you need to know were your floor starts so that you don't dig any further than you should. We use the center of the barn in the winter as a protected run for them to get some exercise.
