How do you clean your coops?

[Ericasl]

I clean mine once a week, I have a dirt floor with straw, It was a wood shed. My dh just bought a coop planning book so i think a new coop is in my furture.

I have 14 hens, Mine just seem to go when they are roosting, Mine are out all day. They come and go all day but they are out for the most part. So I put cardboard or newspaper where I know They roost. (someone else gave me that idea from this site). then I just pick it up and get rid of it. I thought it would be alot more work than what it is. I feel lucky everyone alway said how stinky chickens were, I feel they are not at all smelly.

. My nesting boxes I just add clean shavings as need.

 

[bunch-a-chickens]

flat shovel

 

[arlee453]

My coops both have hardware cloth floors. I use a narrow push broom to push any lingering poos down through the grid and then rake and shovel out underneath.

My guy are only in the coop to lay eggs and roost, and we live in a warm climate, so it's worked well for me so far.

 

[lexapurple]

Thank you for all of the responses! I like the idea of putting the newspaper under the roosts and scraper to scrape the poo off the roosts.

 

[lfoose]

For those of you w/the deep litter method, what do you do w/the hay or straw? Does it decompose well?

 

[tororider]

JKM,
Do you have pictures of your setup? I am very interested as I have 4 pullets and I am planning now how to best clean them out. Thanks

 

[swampducks]

Quote:
Thanks for the great pictures and links on your website. DH is building me a coop this spring and I told him I'd heard about DLM and wanted to try that. Do you have a floor under yours or dirt? I'm planning on going with the dirt floor and burying wire all the way around to keep out digging pests. Up here in northern MI the fact that this stuff helps generate a little heat will be a great advantage.

 

[Dawn419]

Thanks for the great pictures and links on your website. DH is building me a coop this spring and I told him I'd heard about DLM and wanted to try that. Do you have a floor under yours or dirt? I'm planning on going with the dirt floor and burying wire all the way around to keep out digging pests. Up here in northern MI the fact that this stuff helps generate a little heat will be a great advantage.

Hi swampducks,

All 3 of our coops have wooden floors. Since they have wood floors, as opposed to dirt floors, we don't really have any decompositon happening, but there is no smell, what-so-ever.

When we relocate to Arkansas, we'll probably switch to dirt floors in the coops. Right now we our renting our home so we've opted for smaller coops with wood floors for ease of moving and we don't leave a mess behind, if that makes sense...

lfoose
Today 7:15 am For those of you w/the deep litter method, what do you do w/the hay or straw? Does it decompose well?

We're using pine shavings to DLM right now. Not really any decomposing happening without the dirt floor but there's no smell. Visitors are amazed that they can't smell the chickens!

My first coops (20 years ago), had dirt floors and I used hay for litter in them. I was using the DLM back then, just didn't know that there was a name for it. I cleaned the coops once a year in the late spring and the hay/pooh combo broke down nicely!

Hope this helps!

Dawn​

 

[nightshade]

I clean mine out atleast once a month or if it gets stinky before then. We use large sawdust as bedding and have a conceret floor. I use a hoe, flats, shove, hose in the warmer months and a wheel barrow. I scrap off the roosts and a board that some of the ducks sleep on, Haul out all the dirty shaveings, compost it all when I take it out of the coop. Spread 50 or 100 lb feed bags of new bedding around and yeeee clean coop. I hate a stinky coop so it gets cleaned more like once a week except in winter when it can be alittle harder to do cause of the friged weather.