Frequency of Cleaning.

[SteveO27]

About how often would I have to clean the coop/run If I were to get a Chicken Coop with about a 12sq ft coop with a overall run size of 27sq ft housing 3 chickens? Would I have to do daily cleaning, weekly, or monthly? How often would I have to change bedding? If I do get chickens they will most likely be in the coop run most of the time. I read if chickens are mainly kept in the coop/run they need at least 10sq ft per bird. I'm just trying to get an idea of what I would be getting myself into. I appreciate any insight. Thank You!

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

The frequency of maintenance will depend on the approach you take with regards to how you bed the area, etc. For example, an area managed with Deep Litter Method (DLM) requires little in the way of routine cleaning and is fairly easy to manage - but is not for everyone/every flock. Alternatively, there are other methods that are reliant on daily or weekly maintenance/cleaning. Is the coop you are considering a walk-in type structure or one of the smaller pre-fabricated type units? What sort of bedding have you been thinking of using? How much time per day/week do you want to be spending on maintenance?

 

[SteveO27]

I'd like a method that would require cleaning as little as possible like once or twice a week or longer. Is this possible or would I be looking at more frequent cleaning? The coop run would approximately be 6ft high.

 

[ChickenMammX4]

Here's our set-up and routine...

We have 6 chickens with a walk-in coop (8' x 9') and covered run (8' x 16').

In the run we do the Deep Litter Method, it's a mixture of grass clippings, hay, straw, leaves, pine needles and landscape debris. We add these materials through out the year. In the spring we do a deep clean, down to the dirt. This beautiful compost gets tilled into the garden.

In the coop we do Deep Bedding. There are several inches of pine flakes on the floor. There is a poopboard under the roost filled with Sweet PDZ. Most of the poop is concentrated on the poopboard so that gets sifted out everyday or two and dumped on the compost pile. We do a complete clean-out of the pine flakes twice a year, spring and fall. It gets dumped into the garden.

The poopboard sifting takes 5-10 min. The big clean-out takes about 2 hours.