I am converting an old shed / barn into a chicken coop. This thing is 40+ years old but it is pretty big and still sturdy. Probably about 10' x 20'. There will be plenty of space for what will eventually be almost 25 birds in there. I will have 8 nesting boxes and tons of perch space. I have to patch up a few holes here and there but there will be no leaks and no water that will run through it even during a storm. There will also be a pretty big run area all around the outside of the barn. It just has a dirt floor though. Do I have to put in a raised floor and if so, what is the reason?
We used an old little barn (corn crib). We put down tar paper as a moisture barrier then shavings on top. We are doing the "deep litter method" where we add new shavings on top as needed. The chickens mix it up when they do their scratching. It has worked really well. In the spring we rake it all out and put down fresh. It's great. Just once a year. When we were designing our coop, we were thinking about clean up. I wanted to make it as easy as I could.
You can work right on the dirt floor, better for deep litter as the organisms from the dirt will help break down the litter.
I have about the same size coop in a barn built on a dirt floor. Deep litter is great. You can use pine shavings, dried grass, dried leaves, pine needles, or a combination of all. You can use sand too, but as previously said, deep litter breaks down best on dirt, then creates a good microbial matter underneath that keeps breaking everything down. You can remove half of it once or twice a year, and then add fresh material on top.
Dirt is ok as long as it stays dry! The chickens will scratch down through any floor bedding looking for worms and also to dirt bathe. Will the floor stay dry even if you have storms with a 2 or 3" rainfall? That is the main reason I add wood skids and a few sheets of plywood on spots in my run (dirt floor). The coop floor is wood and up off the ground 5". If it was on dirt then my pine chips would soak up the rainfall water like a sponge.
