Floor Ideas?

[CourtneyC]

This chicken coop building is a really long process! I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for the floor in the coop? Right now it is just 2 x 4's. Do I need something to cover the floor? Any suggestions would be appreciated! We are making progress slowly but surely. I just cant wait to get this finished so I can go out and buy some chickens!

 

[duluthmom]

We built our coop with a wood framed floor. Over the top of the 2X framing we put down 2" of rigid foam insulation board and over that - 5/8" green treated plywood. Our coop is about 6'X6" and we wanted the floor to be easy to clean so we got a free scrap piece of EPDM rubber roofing membrane from a local roofing company and stapled in onto the plywood. The edges go up the wall 6" - really nice for mucking out the coop well. Good luck!

 

[Dooner]

Quote:
I feel for you big time! I am building a 4x6 coop and have been working on it for weeks. Granted I only work on it 3-4 hours a day but that tuckers me out. I am sure my 84 yo FIL would have it up in a day and a half. Oh well, we all can't be carpenters. I have the floor and four walls built with one coat of paint. I have to dig the holes and level the ground for coop corner blocks and the run. Building the roof now, putting on the felt , drip edge and shingles today. To answer your question, my floor was framed out with pressure treated wood, the 3/4 in plywood and I covered that with sheet vinyl from Menard's. It was .33 a sq ft and came in 12 foot length. I glued it down, pretty easy.

 

[therowdydog]

We're still building our coop, but have a plywood floor (so far) that we are planning on covering with vinyl for easier cleanup, and since the plywood isn't treated or sealed.

I'd think if your 2x4s are treated, and you put some sort of litter over it (like wood shavings), it wouldn't be a problem ...

 

[CourtneyC]

Thanks for the great ideas! I had heard vinyl before but thought it would be too slippery. But I do believe I will give it a try.

 

[ForgottenGlen]

We used some vinyl linolium for our flooring, built the walls on top of it, and it overhangs on the back side so it is outside on the ground. We have vents on the back of the coop on the floor, use a flat shovel and shovel it out through the vents, slides down the linolium run off, and into a nice neat pile outside! Nice pile o poop for composting!

PS: Not too slippery, they can jump up to the roosts just fine, we put pine shavings on the floor also, to help dry out their droppings.

 

[queenbeezz]

our coop floor is wire laid down and wrapped up the sides with 4 inches of sand/DE mix on top. I'm in FL so I really don't need to worry about insulation. The sand makes it easy to rake up droppings and the DE keeps the insects down. The wire keeps the predators from digging in. We replenish the mix about every 6 months. The floor runs continously out through the run.

 

[colebarnhart]

I built an elevated coop, because I wanted a dropping floor that could be hinged on one side and lowered on the other for easy cleaning. Well I built it and used some extra decking composite boards that I had left over from building my deck. However, combined with the pressure treated 2X4's and the size, it is so freakin' heavy that I have to keep it propped up with a 8x8 post block, and had to put up a 2X4 across the back so stop its decent. So I still like the dropping floor concept, however, if I could do it all over again, I would just use a thin piece of plywood and cover it with some cheap lanolium and then just be able to latch it and lower and raise it without all the crap I have to go through currently.

 

[ColoradoGirl42]

I wanted to insulate and then cover my coop floor with something waterproof and easy to clean. I tried to find "scrap" vinyl flooring for my coop, but had no success... my coop is 18' x 8', and even though I'd be willing to use 2 or 3 pieces of vinyl and just glue them together, I haven't found any free or low-cost stuff. I liked the roofing membrane idea till I looked at the cost -- whew, $150 or so for what I need! I've already spent so much on fencing for the yard, and all the other things that a newbie needs, that my DH's tolerance is being strained, and mine too.

Does anyone have any ideas for anything else I could use for waterproof, easily-cleaning floowing that would be less expensive?

THANKS!

 

[seanb]

I've found that since installing a poop board under the roosts, there isn't much chicken poop that ends up on the floor. Our coop floor consists of linoleum over plywood, tacked down at the corners with a second layer of linoleum that just lays on top of the first. It can be easily removed to take outside for hosing off but with a few inches of pine shavings on top of all that, we haven't had the need to remove it once yet.

I'm sure that'll change a bit in winter but in nice weather, they're either on the roost or outside.