how close can the poo be to the roost?

[Renthorin]

Kind of an odd question perhaps. My original design had the roost bars (two 2x4 at the same height) about 30" off the ground. Below that, on the coop floor, I had two Rubbermaid containers to catch the poo. What missed those I caught on a strip of pond liner which ran the length of the roost boards (8feet long)

That took a lot of floor space away that the girls could have enjoyed.

So...... yesterday I put 3 more 2x4 beneath the roost ones, running parallel. They are 3.5 inches below the roost bars. On top of those I have sheets of plexiglass, covered in painters paper. I found the painters paper at Lowes (I love lowes). It's heavy brown paper, like kids could draw on. It's the same depth as the roost boards so it cover the plexi perfectly.

Last night was the test and the ladies didn't seem to mind. This after noon, it looks like this:

My question is if the poo is too close to the roost? I plan to change the paper weekly if needed, it's that easy to do. I don't plan to wait until the poo is inches deep.

thanks,

Will

 

[Doopy]

Will, your set up looks great. The chickens shouldn't care how close your poop board is to the roosting perch. They're going to walk in the poo anyway. You didn't mention how many birds you have but I'm sure you will want to clean the poop board more than once a week. The roost in my coop looks a lot like yours but my poop board is a tempered Masonite piece about 72" long x 20" wide. It rests on two 2x4s about 6" below the perch and can be lifted out easily. Even though it can be lifted out I prefer to leave it in place and I use a 6" drywall knife to scrape the poo into an old aluminum baking pan. It's so much easier to carry the 9x11 pan out to the compost pile instead of struggling with the entire board. I do this every other day for the 10 or 12 chickens in this coop.

Oh yeah, I sprayed the surface of the Masonite with Thompson's Waterseal so the moisture will not get into the board and it makes scraping the board very easy and clean. I scrub the board (and use bleach) about every 6 months and re-apply the Waterseal when the board has fully dried.

 

[Renthorin]

Hey doopy. I have 12 hens. The coup is 8x8x7 high. With the poo 'tubs' off the ground they have the entire floor to play on, except where the water jug sits and the food bucket sits (that's in the picture).

If the poo soaks through the paper it is plastic underneath so cleaning should be a breeze.

That picture is one night's worth of poo. I plan to go to Sat and see how bad it gets. I'd like to do a weekend cleaning if I can wait that long, but I don't want to stress the ladies.