How often do you clean out your run and coop?

[LynneP]

Daily. The birds roost on a platform, which I scrape every morning with a paint scraper into a catch bucket, and often treat with a little food-grade diatomaceous earth. If I notice wet or fresh droppings in the litter, I take that up too, and scrape the roosts and perches. Outside, I scrpe up any large droppings- we're roofed so we don't get wet manure much. Once a week a new blae of pine shavings goes in with some food-grade DE, and I use more of the DE around the run perimeter and in the porch and across the doorway sills.

 

[annie3001]

its sad: everyday i clean the main coop, i rake the run about every few days. I just think its better for them, they seem happy in a clean coop, its easier if its maintained this way, clean up isnt hard work, but then again, i am home all day long with 2 kids, and this isnt hard to do. just works for me, maybe not everone.

 

[ams3651]

the last thing I had in my run was fresh pine shavings from a guy I know with a tree service, worked like a charm. I havent had need to remove them but a rake would do fine. Inside, I dont have dropping boards, they just go right to the floor from the roost and I do deep litter in the winter so I just bought a scoop shovel and scoop them right into the wheelbarrow.

 

[hang_loose]

We don't have chickens yet but do you think if you sprayed a vegetable oil on the vinal (can't remember how to spell that word)
flooring or on a vinal covered roost would make it easier to clean?
We may have chickens next spring but are looking for easy ways to keep the coop clean?

Thanks

 

[ivan3]

hang_loose wrote: We don't have chickens yet but do you think if you sprayed a vegetable oil on the vinal (can't remember how to spell that word)
flooring or on a vinal covered roost would make it easier to clean?

Well, I'd be more worried about my adhering to it than the poop sticking. To get some traction rather than ending up in it: Two inches of quickrete playsand mixed with a little food grade diatomaceous earth (sorptive, insect suppressing dust) over vinyl (base) wood chips and a bit of straw over that. 2"x4" roosts are very useful (chooks keep their feet warm in winter and if you run into a mite/lice problem the wood can be rubbed down with tea tree oil/orange guard, etc.). Just keep a 4" wide metal paint scraper in coop to clear the planks of any droppings.​

 

[Monk]

I think the vegetable oil would be a disaster! Oil and chicken dust would be the chore to clean up! I'm not sure what bacteria would be growing in rancid vegetable oil???
A well built and ventilated coop, DE and turning over the litter weekly works for me, easy to clean too...

 

[weaveagarden]

I just started using the Stall Dry in my Deep Litter Coop. It is a mixture of DE and Volcanic Ash Clay. I like the looks of it, and not too much dust in the air from it. I know some people use sand in their coops as the primary form of litter. We live in a very damp area of the country (pretty much year round) I wonder if a person could use just the Stall Dry and no wood chips or straw. Any opinions?

By the way, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the StallDry is under $20 for 50lbs. It was considerably cheaper than the 50lbs of DE I bought the week before. With shipping, I paid over $50. Yikes. Permaguard food safe, so it will be great for lots of uses. But the stall dry has it too and is so much cheaper.

 

[randytheeggman]

Has anyone got a cure for spider webs....my coop and run are covered with them. I can use the shop vac to get rid of them but is there a spray that will prevent them without harming the ladies.?? I have heard bleach and water in a garden sprayer works but I have to go buy a sprayer...will the bleach solution hurt them??

 

[hang_loose]

Well the pam spray idea goes into the compost heap...