For the MINIMALISTS - those who think less is more in chicken keeping - Please help

[GetFitWithKrista]

This discussion is for the MINIMALISTS - those who think less is more in chicken keeping.

Hi all, I am new to chickens. I want to create the most efficiently run coop possible with the least amount of work. I am not lazy but I am generally efficient in my life and I know that running a backyard chicken gig can be too, like anything else. Since I'm new though, I need some guidance. I am okay with putting in a little extra work in the setup to make it easier on myself as I go. Do you have any tips to keep things simple or can you share your setup if it is similar?

Here is some info pertaining to my situation:

I'm in New Jersey.

We're building a henhouse for 5 hens (see photos)
- Henhouse 11.5'w x 9'd x 8.5'h
- Coop 11.5'w x 3'd
- Integrated enclosed/covered run 11.5'w x 6'd

Coop
- I am hoping to use course sand so it is scoopable. I have read that it doesn't really need to be changed out completely but more may need to be added as you go.
- Our structure is wood but we were thinking of attaching vinyl to the inside of the coop to it's easily wipeable
- Is it possible to do the coop poop cleanup 3 days a week instead of every day and not cause problems?
- I have heard of the droppings boards but I don't know how to add it to my setup (see photo of coop) or if it's even needed for my situation.
- We were thinking about using removable sanded PVC bars in the coop and run so they are easily wipeable and they hold up.

Run
- We have grass now but I know it will become dirt quickly. Can it stay dirt? Will it be gross and harbor bacteria?
- I can throw down a little bit of some kind of material but I don't want something that needs to be changed out more than once a year or needs maintenance.

Food
- We researched using a large trash bin and adding feeders (see photos) so it only needs to be refilled periodically and it stays neat.

Water
- Rain barrel so it's basically automated.

Nesting boxes
- I have no plan for this other than I was told to use something that is soft and can be removed to be cleaned.

Thanks in advance for any info you would be willing to share with me. I'm grateful.

 

[Sueby]

I’m sure you’ll get great advice here but I’ll throw a few things out that help me minimize maintenance here:

deep bedding, I only clean the coop out twice a year & I add pine shavings & turn the bedding every few weeks if needed - this is my main suggestion for you to look into

large nipple waterers & multiples of them kept outside of the coop so they dont make a mess inside & they cant kick a mess in their water & don’t need to be filled every day

large port feeders kept outside & multiples, same idea as the water

auto door so I don’t have to let them in and out each day, though I do check on them & collect eggs every day

run has wood chips & fallen leaves so involves 0 cleaning ever & doesn’t smell

 

[GetFitWithKrista]

I’m sure you’ll get great advice here but I’ll throw a few things out that help me minimize maintenance here:

deep bedding, I only clean the coop out twice a year & I add pine shavings & turn the bedding every few weeks if needed - this is my main suggestion for you to look into

large nipple waterers & multiples of them kept outside of the coop so they dont make a mess inside & they cant kick a mess in their water & don’t need to be filled every day

large port feeders kept outside & multiples, same idea as the water

auto door so I don’t have to let them in and out each day, though I do check on them & collect eggs every day

run has wood chips & fallen leaves so involves 0 cleaning ever & doesn’t smell

Ah, thanks so much for this info, Sueby. I keep going back and forth between the course sand and deep bedding. There is so much conflicting info. This has been the most challenging part of figuring out our strategy.

To make sure I undertand, you use deep bedding with some pine shavings. What is the bedding material? You do nothing to it but turn it (which means move it around and mix it up?) once every 3 weeks and change it out completey twice a year. Is that right? When you change out the deep bedding twice a year, how long does it take? I'm confused about this because I hear different things. You don't have to manage the poop at all besides once every 3 weeks and then 2 times a year? That sounds like a dream come true.

Dumb question but does the door NEED to be closed at night for a certain reason? I believe in the plans I purchased, it's just an opening and there is no door. Not hard to add but not sure why they wouldn't include a door?

How much wood chips do you put in your run? Is the floor underneath visible? Is it a layer of wood chips?

I will definitely check them and love them. I just want the cleaning up after them process to be as simple as possible.

 

[3KillerBs]

deep bedding, I only clean the coop out twice a year & I add pine shavings & turn the bedding every few weeks if needed - this is my main suggestion for you to look into

large nipple waterers & multiples of them kept outside of the coop so they dont make a mess inside & they cant kick a mess in their water & don’t need to be filled every day

Excellent advice! I'm a great fan of both Deep Bedding/Deep Litter and horizontal nipple waterers.

To make sure I undertand, you use deep bedding with some pine shavings. What is the bedding material? You do nothing to it but turn it (which means move it around and mix it up?) once every 3 weeks and change it out completey twice a year. Is that right? When you change out the deep bedding twice a year, how long does it take? I'm confused about this because I hear different things. You don't have to manage the poop at all besides once every 3 weeks and then 2 times a year? That sounds like a dream come true.

Here's my article on Deep Bedding: Using Deep Bedding in a Small Coop It should answer many of your questions.

I have Deep Litter -- the moist, composting system in my Open Air coop -- and am going on 18 months without any cleaning.

It's about time to shovel some out to age and then use on the garden (my coop is a little too dry to maintain composting all the time).

Dumb question but does the door NEED to be closed at night for a certain reason? I believe in the plans I purchased, it's just an opening and there is no door. Not hard to add but not sure why they wouldn't include a door?

If your run is entirely predator-proof there's no need to close the pop door, though it *can* be handy to be able to shut your chickens into one section or the other so that you can work there without interruption.

Note: Commercial chicken coop plans for sale are often designed by good carpenters who have little knowledge of what chickens actually need. Here's some basic information to help you evaluate what you might need to change about your plans:

The Usual Guidelines

For each adult, standard-sized hen you need:

• 4 square feet in the coop (.37 square meters)
• 10 square feet in the run (.93 square meters),
• 1 linear foot of roost (.3 meters),
• 1/4 of a nest box,
• And 1 square foot (.09 square meters) of permanent, 24/7/365 ventilation, preferably located over the birds' heads when they're sitting on the roost.

4 hens

• 16 square feet in the coop. 4'x4' is the only really practical build for this given the common dimensions of lumber.
• 4 feet of roost
• 40 square feet in the run. 4'x10' or 5'x8'. 6'x6' is a bit too small, 6'x8' is more generous and easier to build than 5'x8'.
• 4 square feet of ventilation. A 2'x2' window is theoretically enough, but in practice doesn't create any air FLOW so better to spread the venting around (and even better to exceed the minimums, especially in warm climates).
• 2 nest boxes, to give the hens a choice

6 hens

• 24 square feet in the coop. 4'x6' is the only really practical build for this given the common dimensions of lumber. If you can't walk into it, put the access door in the middle of the long side to make sure you can reach all areas of the coop because a stubborn chicken WILL press itself into/lay an egg in the back corner where you can't reach.
• 6 feet of roost
• 60 square feet in the run. 6'x10' or 8'x8'.
• 6 square feet of ventilation.
• 2 nest boxes, to give the hens a choice

Repecka Illustrates Coop Ventilation

 

[Folly's place]

Deep bedding, with shavings and dry plant material, and clean out once or twice yearly. Same in the covered run. Cleanout material is good to compost, or spread outside.
Roosts made from saplings or branches, 2" to 3" diameter, bark on. Or 2x 4" lumber, if you don't have branches. DO NOT use PVC!
For five birds, don't bother with poo boards, it's just extra work.
We use shavings or hay or straw in the nest boxes, with empty feed bags underneath, easy to change out as needed. Something comfortable and either cleanable or easy to replace.
Your grass run will be demolished, so add bedding, garden refuse, coop bedding, so it gives the birds a dry surface to dig into for bugs and worms.
Having the run roofed saves it from getting too wet (consider drainage!) and saves shoveling snow in winter. Those clear panels might make it too hot in summer, and do fail much faster than a conventional roof system. Consider snow load!!!
It's essential that you have a predator proof run/ coop combination! No openings larger than 1/2" anywhere, very secure latches, and consider adding 2"x 4" woven wire over that hardware cloth on the lower 3' or 4' of your run.
Mary

 

[Sueby]

Oooh, I see @3KillerBs here, she has a good article on deep bedding she can link that will explain it all. It does seem too good to be true, but nope, it’s not! You are correct, I just put pine shavings in, turn it over every once in a while & clean it out completely twice a year. It takes me about 20 minutes to shovel it out & out and put a new bale of new shavings in. That really is it.

My run is very large at about 1200sf, all dirt, I get loads of wood chips from local tree trimming companies & just put a pile of the trimmings out & let the birds spread them. I leave the leaves in when they fall in the fall. I do no other maintenance there.

 

[Folly's place]

Lining the interior isn't a great idea if it includes space between the walls. Rodents will colonize this space! Ask me how I know this...
Having a skirt around everything, or a deep concrete foundation, to keep out digging predators.
Many of us start with a few birds, and then 'chicken math' hits, and our flocks expand, sometimes a lot! Build as big as you can.
Ventilation! How is your coop ventilated? More is always better.
Mary

 

[Sally PB]

I have 7 chickens, 6 hens and a rooster. (Adding 4 chicks in May.) I do use a poop board, and it was a game changer for me. It's covered with about a 1/2" of Sweet PDZ, and I use a cat litter scoop to sift off the poop daily. The poop goes into a bucket, and when it's full, it goes on the compost pile by the garden. It's about a 1-2 minute chore each morning.

The bedding in the coop is two bales of pine shavings. I start with one, and add another in the fall.

In the spring, I scoop up the bedding in the run and spread it on my garden. That stuff is a year's worth wood chips, autumn leaves, the pine shavings from the coop, and whatever else I have put in there since the last spring. All shredded by the chickens, mixed with their poop, and composted into black gold. This year, I'll probably get in excess of 20 cf of PRIME garden compost out of my run. My garden has benefited greatly from my keeping chickens.

Once that stuff is out of the run, I clean out the coop. The coop shavings go into the run, new shavings go into the coop, and the cycle begins anew.

 

[alwaystj9]

I have an open coop inside a netted run - no doors. I do have a small pen inside the run if I need to stash or corral a bird. I have to manually let them out to free range in the pasture and I usually lock them in the run at night.
It took me a while to get the run drainage figured out & shoveled out, that was big pain but getting the rainwater to run off really helped with maintainance of everything.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum from Louisiana, glad you joined.

I want to create the most efficiently run coop possible with the least amount of work. I am not lazy but I am generally efficient in my life and I know that running a backyard chicken gig can be too, like anything else.

Have you already built this or are those photos something you are considering? Since I can count nine chickens in one photo (the one with the boy) I'm not sure it is already built. So I'll mention a couple of things.

Drainage is extremely important in how hard you have to work. If water runs to the area and/or stands you will probably have issues to deal with. If the area drains it makes life a lot easier. If you can, pick an area that drains well. If you can't do that, effort spent to enhance keeping it dry will pay off in the long run.

Having easy access makes your life a lot simpler. At that height you can stand up in there but how will you access a 3' wide coop section and have anything in it?

If you follow the link in my signature you can see some of my thoughts on space for chickens. Those sort of explain why I say the tighter I pack them the more behavioral problems I have to deal with, the harder I have to work, and the less flexibility I have to deal with issues that come up. There are certain minimum spacing suggestions on this forum. In your circumstances those should work for you. But the tradeoff for going with the minimums is that you have to work harder, almost certainly involving managing the poop.

Coop
- I am hoping to use course sand so it is scoopable. I have read that it doesn't really need to be changed out completely but more may need to be added as you go.

Some people use sand and love it. Some hate it and soon switch. How wet the area is has an effect but you have to scoop it regularly. I thought you were trying to avoid regular work.

- Our structure is wood but we were thinking of attaching vinyl to the inside of the coop to it's easily wipeable

Your concept of the level of cleanliness required is likely to cause you a lot of work. Yes, some of this is a state of mind. Wet chicken poop is bad. Certain pathogens live in it, particularly the ones that cause Coccidiosis. Wet chicken poop rots, decomposes, or breaks down, whichever word you want to use. In doing so it produces ammonia, a dangerous gas. It stinks, it becomes slimy. That's because the microbes that break it down are anaerobic, they cannot live in the presence of oxygen. If it is dry enough the microbes that break it down are aerobic, oxygen can get to them. These don't stink, produce a nice compost, and the number of bugs that cause Coccidiosis don't get out of hand. To be clear, the water keeps the air out which causes the problem.

I don't worry about dry poop, it will not cause a problem. So keep your coop dry. You want a dry run too but if the weather sets in wet that can be more of a problem. Still, do the best you can.

The reason you probably need to manage the poop is that if it builds up too thick it won't dry out. Chickens poop day and night wherever they are. During the day it generally is more spread out but at night poop can really build up since they are not moving around. That's why we use droppings boards. They make it easier to remove the poop.

There are different ways to make "droppings boards". Some people hang a hammock under the roosts. Some build trays that hold sand, PDZ, maybe wood shavings, something to dry the poop and make it scoopable. I don't, mine is a piece of plywood that I scrape the poop off of when I need to. How often do I need to? It depends on the number of chickens I have roosting there and how humid the weather is. With a fairly high number of chickens and wet weather I may scrape it once a week. When my numbers are low and the weather is dry I sometimes go six weeks. If it starts to stink I waited too long. It did not take me long to get a feel for when I needed to scrape it to avoid stink.

Some people turn their coop or their run into a compost pile. That's what we call deep litter. For it to compost it has to have a little moisture in it. The ideal amount of moisture is described as wet a sponge and wring the moisture out. Much more moisture than that and it goes anaerobic. If it is too dry the microbes that break it down cannot live and reproduce. Some people that use deep litter still have droppings boards but many don't. They generally have to break up the poop under the roosts so they may rake it in or toss scratch in that area and let the chickens rake it for them.

I don't use that method. I keep it too dry for the microbes that break it down to live. I use droppings boards to get pure poop for my compost pile and my chickens spend practically all day every day outside so they don't deposit much poop in the coop. My coop floor is dirt and stays very dry. I use wood shavings on the floor to absorb moisture and replace them as they get scratched to bits. I clean my coop floor out once every three or four years, not because I need to but because I want that stuff on my garden. I should do that annually but that's work. I have an 8' x 12 coop, over 3,000 square feet outside, and weather they can be outside practically every day of the year. The only time they are in the coop is in the morning before I let them out, when they come in to lay eggs, and when they go to bed.

Run
- We have grass now but I know it will become dirt quickly. Can it stay dirt? Will it be gross and harbor bacteria?

My main run, 12' x 32' is bare dirt. It is mostly covered and is on a slight rise so it drains reasonably well. When the weather sets in wet rain blows in from the side and it can get pretty wet but it doesn't stay wet long enough for anaerobic bacteria to set up. I dumped bags of pea gravel at strategic locations so I can walk around without getting too muddy. I can easily live with it.

Your run is small and the poop will not be spread out much. I think you will probably need to do something even if it stays fairly dry. That could be using some type of bedding or turning your run into a compost pile.

Food
- We researched using a large trash bin and adding feeders (see photos) so it only needs to be refilled periodically and it stays neat.

Water
- Rain barrel so it's basically automated.

OK

Nesting boxes
- I have no plan for this other than I was told to use something that is soft and can be removed to be cleaned.

The only time I clean out my nests is after a broody hen hatches in it or if an egg breaks in there. I don't let mine sleep in the nests so there is no poop in them. I read about others cleaning out their nests regularly. I've never figured out why, other than maybe some people are genetically inclined to clean without a reason. It's probably because their concept of clean is vastly different from mine.

You've been getting good advice. You can probably see we don't all do things the same way, we each have to find our own way. Be flexible, not everything works out the way you think it will. Concentrate on keeping it dry and avoid limiting yourself on space and access.