Does anyone NOT use a poop board and wish they had? or...

[nickie]

I don't use them, and quite frankly wouldn't know how to go about adding any. We have lots of perches at all heights and angles on one side of our coop. I use deep litter and mix/rake it daily. If I have an area that got wet from rain blowing in the pop door I give it the old heave-ho, but no problems. No smell either.

 

[ceeceeholt]

We use deep litter and no poop boards. I'm like you, don't want to clean poop boards and then where to put that poop too, besides the garden. Deep litter is easy to clean, I use pine shavings and DE and stir, no stink and I do get rid of "piles" my ladies like to leave on ladders and such!

 

[kuntrygirl]

I have a wire floor (raised coop) with hay as bedding and no poop board.

 

[NovaAman]

hears what i do... I used some lids from old totes... I put them under the roosts, and a layer of pine over them, then I just take them out every other day, and dump them into a HUGE plastic tote, take over to burn barrel, or compost it, turn into the veg soil in the fall... Thats my poop board...

 

[smokinjay]

Quote:
Nice thinking!

 

[fireguy56]

Hi, Here is my two cents worth. Before building my coop, I did alot of research. Opted for deep layer method over wood floor covered with congloeum. Use pine shavings. Also went with a poop collection system as well under roosts. I use a tray system.(old cafeteria trays) with pine shavings on them. I have thirty chickens. They poop alot. I feel if I let the poop fall to the floor, it would be a real mess. I empty the trays every 4-5 days.....simple. slide out, scrape into tote, then out to compost pile. I don't have the time to scoop poop off the floor with a "pooper scooper" every day. That may work for others, just not for me. We love our set up, as I said it works for us. Good luck. Here is a picture.
Erik

 

[kera!]

I have a poop board I cover it in DE and every afternoon go out and scoop it into a 5 gal bucket, and then bag it up and toss it out.. no smell I use a 14'' flat putty scrapper for drywall to scrape

 

[NanaLantana]

I built my 'Florida' coop with a 'poop slide'. Works great - an angled piece of aluminum flashing under the roost. I cupped it a bit in the middle, and it exits the coop into a 5-gal bucket. 10 seconds of hosing it off in the morning, and it's done. Then I dump the bucket under some trees. I don't like to shovel poop, either! Works great for me, here in Florida, where I don't have all solid walls in my coop.

If you decide to use my idea of an aluminum poop slide, be sure to cover it with chicken wire - otherwise the girls will slide down into the bucket as well

 

[nuchickontheblock]

When we built our new coop we decided to use the top of the nest boxes as the poop board. It is covered in a leftover piece of vinyl floor covering from the coop floor and I put a light layer of pine shavings on it. The roost is a few inches above that. We only have 3 girls, so not that much poop, but i use a dust pan and putty knife type scraper every morning to collect the poop and then dump any poop and dirty shavings into a 5 gal pail. takes about 2 minutes and no smell. We also have about 6 inches of shavings on the floor and if there's any additional poop on the floor, I'd pick that up at the same time. Works for me.

 

[bertman]

For the first two months our six girls were in their new coop we only used about an inch of equine pine pellets. They worked well to keep the smell down even in the heat of summer. Then I decided to put a vinyl-covered poop shelf on the floor of the coop (right on top of the pellets) under the roost. I had made the poop shelf to slide under the roost above the floor but that system didn't work out well, so I just laid it on the floor.

Now I pull the shelf out each night and scrape off the accumulated poop with a leafy limb from a bunch that blew off the trees during Irene's visit. I don't even bother to really clean it but once a week or so when I sift DE into the coop and add some fresh pellets (the old ones get scratched to pieces by the girls, plus they absord the moisture from the chicken poop when the girls are hanging out in the coop but not on the roost). The advantage of cleaning the shelf in the evening is that the girls have been ranging in the run and in the yard so the poop has hardened on the shelf and is easy to scrape off.

The reasons I like the poop shelf are that it is easy to clean, I can see the volume of poop (there is a LOT of it) and the condition of the poop (so I can tell if someone is having gastrointestinal issues), and it saves on pellets.

If the girls are particularly voluminous in their poop production I just wash the shelf down after cleaning it and stick it back in the coop. Very quick and easy.