how often do you rake out your coop?

[webdawg]

I'm going to use sand on the whole floor.
Quote:

 

[Poison Ivy]

If you lifted the hay up from my floor I must have 300 lbs of sand under it. I poured it on the floor to start & then layed hay it works great. I just went today and bought 4 more 50 lb bags to put under roosts.

 

[khable]

Has anyone used sand exclusively inside the coop??

I was planning on using sand in the run and wood shavings inside?

But using sand inside too might make it easier to scoop??

Any thoughts??

Thanks,

Kim

 

[Barnyard Dawg]

Quote:
What I do is use cedar shavings inside the coop and sand in the pen and under the perches, it makes for easy cleanup. I leave the coop door open always so it is the pen that gets dirty and not the coop. If you use sand inside the coop it will smell very quickly that is my opinion.

 

[Poison Ivy]

My chickens are only in the coop at night & to lay their eggs. So my coop stays really clean and it doesn't really smell at all but I do have 4 large full size windows that stay open at all times. And I never lock my chickens in the coop they have access to the run 24/7. When I had my pullets in dog cages inside the coop for a month the area where they were was nasty & had to be changed daily. I had 24 in the dog cages. So they made a mess pretty fast. All you can do it try different materials inside the coop and find out which one suits you best. Everyone likes different things so what works best for one won't work for another. We have a big problem with ants so I stay away from wood shavings or chips/mulch which they just love here.

 

[lexa]

Is there anything wrong with just having a dirt floor in the coop? Is it not recommended? We're in the desert (although it doesn't seem like it from the daily rain) and I was planning on just leaving the coop dirt inside. Our chickens will never be solely confined to the coop. It's not as though the smell of the poop will soak into the soil, will it?

What do you do with the excess sand that you rake out? I have enough piles of stuff around and I don't want to add another!

 

[Poison Ivy]

When my first coop had a dirt floor I just raked it out ever so often or when it needed it. I've not had to replace my sand on my floor yet just the sand under the roosts. I have 10 acres to dispose of stuff. I have more horse poo to get rid of then chicken poo. It all go in the garden after awhile.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Not very often... I have an 8x8 coop that a dozen hens roost in at night and lay in their nests during the day, otherwise they are outside. I buy the 12 cubic foot bales of pine shavings from the feedstore for about $5. (The 12 cubic feet is compressed into a small thirty lb bale). One bale puts down a layer about 3 or 4 inches deep. I stir any clumps under the roosts into the bedding every couple of days. (Takes about 30 seconds with a garden rake). When the bedding starts to get loaded up with poo (after quite a long time), I throw in another bale of shavings to add a fresh layer. I cleaned out the coop a few weeks ago after six months with a layer a foot or more deep and it never smelled or looked dirty in there in all that time. You do have to keep it dry though. A leaking waterer or roof will cause the bedding to start composting and produce heat and ammonia.

I made a compost bin of four foot high chicken wire wrapped into a bin about 6 feet in diameter and mixed the used bedding, some old leaves and grass clippings. I wet it down as I mixed it all together. Within a couple of hours the pile heated up to 160 degs and really got working. The pile blew off huge amounts of ammonia for about a week with all the extra nitrogen in there...

 

[Zenbirder]

I made friends with our local feed store owner. He lets us collect the straw and hay pieces from under where he sells the bales, we are actually doing him a favor. We take a huge cardboard box, it once held a recliner chair and we got it behind the furniture store, and fill it up with a big shovel. The stuff is still full of seed so the chicks enjoy scratching, they eat the seed out so it is eventually not going to fill the garden with seeds. It seems to be working well so far, and doesn't cost a lot

I may still try the sand idea once the girls use the high roost over the nest boxes.