Help with roost design and location

[rookea]

A car ran off the road and into my chicken coop. All chickens survived but I have to repair my coop cottage. This gives me the opportunity to fix a few things I don't like on the inside. Are there any creative, experienced coop builders/designers willing to help me out. I can take more pictures, video, etc. My space is 12 feet x 7 feet in the area I have to work with, the coop, as a whole, is bigger than that but I have a feed room and a "birthing suite" that I don't want to mess with. It is the roost and poop collection design and location that I do not like and need ideas. I currently have 14 hens and one rooster. I have had up to 22 birds at one time but it is best at 20 or less.

My thoughts, I want an easier and better poop collection system. Something that is easy to empty and keep clean. Something that chickens won't want to sit in. I have thought about covering a board in linoleum and creating a funnel shape to scrape in a wheel barrow or trays that I can pickup and dump out.

I don't know. I have looked at a million pictures and haven't found what is right for me. I have a lot of space but it is not well used and a lot of it is waisted. Open to ideas!!

Help,
Angelia

 

[ChickenCanoe]

That's a beautiful coop. I like the setup as it is. It is just a smaller version of the roost area we had in a 100 leghorn hen house when I was growing up.
All of our nest boxes were under the roost area with doors below the slope one could open to access the eggs.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Oof sorry to hear about a CAR crashing into the coop... that's something all right!

As far as the roost area, you could possibly slope the roost and poop board more (to get the poop sliding down), then maybe get creative at the bottom with either angled end boards that make a slightly funneled shape and a removable hatch so you can easily scrape the poop into a bucket? Or I've seen people set up something that looks more like a hammock (so it'd be canvas or a tarp material) so you could lift it and empty it that way?

 

[Ted Brown]

I used what is often recommended here, roosts with a drop board underneath. Drop board covered with linoleum and PDZ on top. I pickup droppings each morning using a litter scope and dispose of it in a nearby compost heap. Takes maximum of 15 minutes, eliminates most smells (although I also have a well ventilated Woods coop).

 

[Ridgerunner]

I like it the way it is except it looks like there is a trap at the top. I'd put a piece of plywood across the top of the "slide" so poop didn't get stuck there. You could put linoleum on it if you wish but mine is just plywood.

What do you scrape it with? I use a garden hoe with a broken handle so it's not so long I break windows to loosen the poop and a squeegee to scrape the poop into a plastic bin. Gloves come in handy.

I don't now how often you clean that but I think it's about as simple as you can get. You need to scrape it to break it loose, it slides down the slope to get caught at the bottom, and you scrape it into a bin of some kind to get rid of it.

 

[aart]

A car ran off the road and into my chicken coop. All chickens survived but I have to repair my coop cottage.

Yikes!!
How badly was the building damaged?
Got pics of that?

My space is 12 feet x 7 feet in the area I have to work with, the coop, as a whole, is bigger than that but I have a feed room and a "birthing suite" that I don't want to mess with.

This is a bit confusing....the building(coop) itself is bigger than 12x7??
A scaled sketch of floor plan on graph paper would help me...
...and may you to plan renovations.

I too keep 15-20 birds.
Am also a fan of poop boards with PDZ: