How often do you clean your coop?

[Our Roost]

Right now there is no easy way to load up old straw bedding and cart it out of the coop to a compost pile. The snow is too deep and the weather just wont allow it. We use the deep litter method of just adding more bedding til spring and raking up small piles. Dander dust and cobwebs are really mounting on every surface within the coop. It helps to use a wisk broom and a homemade feather duster to do a little cleanup on surfaces that start to get piled with dust and the like. If you have light bulbs of any sort and or electrical boxes, makes sure you wipe and clean them free of cobwebs and dust. You surely dont want the possible means of a fire starting. Spread a little diatamaceous earth on the coop floor during winter months to help soak up droppings and freshen it up a bit. In the spring, every thing will come out of the coop, including the chickens, and it will get a good hosing down and wash out with some products to disinfect and kill any mites, lice and what have you. I have a dirt floor, so I will add some fresh river sand once it is raked out and all the old and matted straw is removed. Add that to your to do list!

 

[nikchic]

Fantastic information from you all and wow what an awesome coop!! I've just had a poop board put in and it sure does sve a lot of time. Is DE and PDZ safe for them to eat as mine peck at everything. I'm still battling the ventilation issue. We've got high humidity in our coop.
Please continue to post you are all great helps.

 

[Brookliner]

The food grade DE is safe to eat and the PDZ is just a mineral that they can eat.

 

[Kaitie09]

Sorry, I just found this thread again.

Here is a photo when I first added the board under the roosts. Mine is stationary and I take a short handled square shovel and scoop it out with that. I would like to eventually switch to PDZ instead of DE, but I bought a 50lb bag of it and still have not made a big dent in the bag. I've read that PDZ keeps the smell down more than DE.

 

[Brookliner]

When I scoop I scoop into a plastic colander like you would use to drain pasta. I just scoop everything into the colander and gently shake, the poop stays in the colander and I empty it into a bucket. The PDZ/DE mixture stays clean and I have harvested the poop mix for my compost. I have a brush that I level the PDZ/DE and replace my roost. My roost slides in and out of a bracket so it is not in the way when I am cleaning. Since the PDZ is ground Zoelite and zoelite is a natural mineral that attracts ammonia and neutralizes it...there is no smell in the coop. I also have a shed roof with open (hardware cloth covered) eaves any excess humidity travels up and out since heat rises. The chickens don't seem to suffer from the cold (I don't heat except for my waterers with cookie tin heaters). I even dust the runs with the PDZ/DE mix and rake them weekly (the runs have a sandy soil base of about 5 inches over hardware cloth). I have many many predators so no free ranging and the runs are buttoned up tight.

 

[Time-Out]

I clean the big coops out once a year. I poop scoop the trays once a week and add bedding when it looks like it could do with freshening up.

My little coop gets cleaned out once every 1-2 months. It's not deep enough for DLM and too small for a poop tray.

 

[canesisters]

This is the first roost/poop tray that I built (back when they were smaller and thinner). It now has 2 trays on the shelf. Once a week I pull the trays and dump them into a plastic tote - which is then dumped on the compost pile. They've been using the 8'x8' coop building since August and I haven't had to clean out the shavings/saw dust on the floor yet. I've added to it several times, and raked up feathers (geeze, to they moult a few dozen times a year????).
This one is 5' long and will have to be replaced VERY soon for one that runs the whole 8' from wall to wall - the chooks have gotten so big that they are literally smooshed together on that roost.

 

[Michael Apple]

I have a dog pooper scooper with a small rake I use to pick up droppings every morning under the roosts. I check the nests too. Doing this on a regular basis keeps the coop smelling clean and the birds breathe better. My birds range so the coops stay pretty clean. Every three months I remove all shavings since they break down and get dusty, which is bad for chickens. I shop-vac the coop and then disinfect with Oxine. After the Oxine is dry enough I spray Ravap E.C.or Gardstar E.C. to runoff on the walls, roosts, floors, and nests. After the coop dries I put new shavings on the floor and nests. The birds always come in and inspect it after I'm done. I've found that by following this cleaning regiment for a few years now, my chickens never get mites or lice. I clean the troughs with Oxine almost daily since wild birds like to get in there and leave a few droppings. I Pick up all feed receptacles when I lock them in to prevent the attraction of rodents. I don't reuse old feed. With grass growing high in late Winter and Spring, I mow it in the yards since long stalks of grass have caused some crop impaction problems in the past. I'll put out high quality fresh feed and those **** chickens will run for the green grass every time.

 

[nikchic]

I have a dog pooper scooper with a small rake I use to pick up droppings every morning under the roosts. I check the nests too. Doing this on a regular basis keeps the coop smelling clean and the birds breathe better. My birds range so the coops stay pretty clean. Every three months I remove all shavings since they break down and get dusty, which is bad for chickens. I shop-vac the coop and then disinfect with Oxine. After the Oxine is dry enough I spray Ravap E.C.or Gardstar E.C. to runoff on the walls, roosts, floors, and nests. After the coop dries I put new shavings on the floor and nests. The birds always come in and inspect it after I'm done. I've found that by following this cleaning regiment for a few years now, my chickens never get mites or lice. I clean the troughs with Oxine almost daily since wild birds like to get in there and leave a few droppings. I Pick up all feed receptacles when I lock them in to prevent the attraction of rodents. I don't reuse old feed. With grass growing high in late Winter and Spring, I mow it in the yards since long stalks of grass have caused some crop impaction problems in the past. I'll put out high quality fresh feed and those **** chickens will run for the green grass every time.

 

What is your ventilation like? Do you only use the wood shavings or hay as well? We've got sand and dirt under our coop where they go to hang out and dust bath. They also poop under there but I have really no way of getting under to clean there. What should I do?