Does anyone have poop boards in a very small coop?

[Yay Chicks!]

My coop is even a bit narrower than yours. My poop board just barely clears the front part of the roost. So most of the poop ends up on the board, but there's always someone facing the wrong way

I was also worried that they wouldn't have room to get down and up, but they all seem to manage, even without a ramp.

 

[BlueBetween]

I think what I have will work now. All I needed was a clamp and 4 inches cut off... what do you think? We are making them work for it to get to the roost, I have a feeling they will all roost on the small catwalk board I put up for them to cross over to the roost, at first... but I hope I'm wrong.

 

[patandchickens]

Def. needs more support out towards the edge so it isn't saggy.

But, eyeballling it, they MIGHT have enough room to get up there ok, I'd suggest observing for a few days and see what happens.

If you decide it's a bit too tight for them, by far the simplest solution IMO would be to simply lower the droppings board a bit, maybe 8" or so, so they can hop up onto the front edge of the droppings board and from there up to the roost. Again, need to support that front edge better.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[kichohana]

My coop is about 3' x 6' and my roosts (yes, 2 roosts) run the 3' width and I have a poop board.

Is is covered in vinyl flooring and removes for complete cleaning, but it mostly gets scraped with a giant drywall taping "knife" into a plactic bucket.

The higher roost is about 8 inches from the wall, and they mostly scrunch up there - as you can see by the poop. Chicken #4 who gets kicked to the lower roost, well her droppings end up mostly on the board. The few droppings that miss end up in the shavings and i just scoop them out with my giant kitty litter scooper I picked up at the $1 store.

You probably don't even need that "catwalk" in there, unless your birds are very heave and that roost is really high, they'll probably just hop up there.

The plastic boot trays were what i really wanted... but the vinyl covered board was cheeper!

 

[BlueBetween]

OK, the girls are in their new coop!!! And I *think* they are on their roost - they were when I last left them. Here they are exploring when we first let them in. I think it's going to be ok for now... that clamp really firmed things up and keeps it all removable too, so I think I'm happy. I'll see what happens when that boot tray comes in - I got some jumbo sized ones for under $20 each, but now I wonder if it's too big. I'll find out soon enough. Thanks for all the suggestions and pictures, it really helped to see that others made it work in small coops - thank you!

 

[palochknldy]

We also have a small coop with 4 chickens. We started out with a rubbermaid lid under the roost for the first couple of months and then found it to be more of a hassel than help. What worked great for us in the winter is newspaper. Before they went to roost, we put newspaper under there and in the morning we could just roll it up and put it into the composter. Now we just let them do their business onto the wood chips and use a kitty litter scoop to get the chips off. It seems that the older that they have gotten, the have seemed to poop less at night.

 

[BlueBetween]

thanks - I just used wood chips and was so pleased to see a nice neat pile of chicken poo in the morning, easy peasy to just brush off into my dustpan... put more chips up, done! So if my boot tray thing doesn't work, this is easy and neat enough that I won't be bummed out. The newspaper idea is good too. I need more "green" things than brown things in my compost bin though...

 

[Snoskred]

I love the color of your coop. If the other half didn't want to blend ours in to the environment it would be the exact color I would choose.

 

[Katydid2011]

Quote:
Looks great!

 

[patandchickens]

I just wanted to add, I *love* your coop. Great job!!

Pat