After months of reading stuff on this site I finally joined! Ok, so the addiction started with 3 serama roosters someone gave to my young kids last November. My family and I now have 24 birds total. Buff Orphingtons, Ameracaunas, Silver Phoenix, Sweetgrass Turkeys and the original Seramas. They lay eggs for us, eat bugs out of our gardens and pastures and we eat the extra roosters. Until the 'day' arrives we do treat them as pets-so they get treats, get petted on and picked up (including the roos). Everybody except the Seramas run totally free range and go into their coop only at night or when they feel the need to poop inside.
So... they wait for us outside on the deck where the BBQ is (kinda creepy if you think about what we're cooking) and beyond that is where we park, so I'm tripping over overzealously friendly chickens while carrying little kids/groceries etc. Is there anything I can do other than sweep the deck daily? I realize this behavior is probably totally ingrained at this point. They even perch on the window sills and talk to whoever is in the farm office on the first floor! It's cute, but the poop isn't. Any advice is appreciated & if it can't be fixed, sweeping the deck off will just stay on the kids' chore list.

So... they wait for us outside on the deck where the BBQ is (kinda creepy if you think about what we're cooking) and beyond that is where we park, so I'm tripping over overzealously friendly chickens while carrying little kids/groceries etc. Is there anything I can do other than sweep the deck daily? I realize this behavior is probably totally ingrained at this point. They even perch on the window sills and talk to whoever is in the farm office on the first floor! It's cute, but the poop isn't. Any advice is appreciated & if it can't be fixed, sweeping the deck off will just stay on the kids' chore list.