How often to clean chicken coop?

[Mamachic1967]

I read on Backyard Chickens to clean the coop once a month; which I was considering. My husband disagrees. A local farmer had chicks and cleaned his coop frequently and lost all his chicks. Apparantly he was told his coop was 'too' clean and that chickens chickens need the bacteria to heal and stay strong, to be able to fight diseases. Has anyone heard this or what can you all tell me about your coop cleaning habits?

 

[cavemanrich]

The local farmer that was cleaning his coop frequently did not loose them due to too much cleanliness. The cleaning of a coop timetable has many factors. How many chickens and the size of chickens and coop.. Are the chickens in the coop all day long, or do they have access to run and free range most of the day.. The size of the run will also affect how often the chickens will be in the coop. If your coop is built clean friendly, then simple mini cleaning of areas under roosts will maintain clean for longer periods of time... So with some of these things in mind , you can determine when to clean on your own.. Your coop will have an odor of chickens regardless, but it should not be so strong as to be offensive... If it is kept dry, then odors should be minimal... Bottom line.......... If there are more droppings than you are comfortable being around,,, or if the smell is rather foul.... CLEANING IN ORDER..
I have a small coop and few chickens and mostly bantams.. I do a HEAVY DUTY cleaning about 4 times a year... I do mini cleaning as needed.

WISHING YOU BEST.

 

[Mamachic1967]

I have 12 Pulett hens in a 10 x 7 foot coop, they go outside as well. I hought maybe in abpout 1 week I would remove the poopy straw and add fresh straw to floor and nests.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Cavemanrich gave a good response. There are just so many factors involved it’s impossible for me to tell you how often you need to clean the bedding out.

My main coop is 8’ x 12’. There are a few times I have as few as 8 adult chickens, but there are also times I have over 40, mostly younger ones growing to butcher size. When I’m checking out how pullets lay to decide which ones to keep I may have 20 or more pretty much full grown chickens in there for a few months. I also have a lot of outside space and the weather so they spend a lot of time outside spreading the poop around. My coop is on the ground with a dirt floor and I use wood shavings as bedding. It stays very dry. I use a droppings board which I clean every two to three weeks, depending in when I feel I need to. That’s going to vary by number of chickens and how humid the weather is. On certain occasions that scraping may be weekly for me until I thin the flock.

I guess you could say I clean every two to three weeks when I scrape the droppings board but I change out my bedding about once every four years. I don’t have to that often but I want that stuff on my garden. I have another couple of years to go this cycle unless I decide to enrich my garden sooner. In a coop this size that is a lot of bedding material volume but I can spread it on my garden in the fall and it is ready to go by springtime. How do you plan on getting rid of your used bedding? With the volume you’ll have once a week and the very small amount of poop in it, that stuff will take a long time to compost.

Some people scrape their droppings boards every day and change out bedding weekly. They may be out cleaning poop from the run pretty often. These are normally people in suburbia with tiny elevated coops and pretty small runs. They are often very concerned about smell, especially in suburbia. I’m at the other extreme. If I let the poop build up to where there is a smell I have waited too long. How wet it is has a lot to do with smell. How much room they have and how much time they spend outside has a lot to do with it too since the more they spread the poop around the less you have to manage it. There are people a lot of different places in between these extremes. We are all unique with our own situations.

On the over-cleaning. Some people are out there constantly cleaning and washing every bit of poop down. They are trying to keep their chickens in a sterile germ-free environment. Again I’m on the other extreme. I believe in exposing my chickens to the environment and building up their immune system so they can handle what nature throws at them.

A wet coop and wet run are dangerous. Letting the manure build up to where it is thick can and probably will lead to smell and can be dangerous from a disease standpoint. Poop management is a big part of chicken-keeping. Smell is a huge indicator to tell you if you are doing it right or wrong. You will have to work out what your best schedule is but with that space and number of chickens I sincerely doubt once a week will be necessary.

Good luck!

 

[Free Feather]

What kind of floor do you have?
What climate do you live in?
Do you free range?

 

[ECBW]

The farmer in question was probably not a chicken farmer. All the chicken farmers I know use deep litter and clean once or twice a year.

the key is keeping the coop dry. It will get dusty but no health or Oder issues.

I go by how things look, not unusual to go months.

 

[KelsT]

So, I have been trying the deep litter method in my coop. I have no cleaned it since putting the birds in at least a month ago. I did have a small water spill and cleaned out the wet area since wet is bad. I have not noticed a smell or have any problems yet. and the girls seem happy. I just am going by nose and keeping a watch on the girls. I will probably have to clean out sooner then 2 times a year just because of the coop size i have. we will see.

that said i have added bedding several times now.

 

[LI chickie]

I put my 6 chicks in the coop in May, they are about 13 weeks old now. I have pine shavings in the coop but nothing in their run. I don't have a poop deck in yet and they've been using the roost at night so I put feed bags underneath. Inside my coop is very clean. Two weeks ago I raked out half the coop where they used to sleep huddled together and where I feed them and moved the old bedding into that side and put new bedding on the other side. I felt guilty that I didn't clean the coop but honestly it seemed like a waste.
I rake the run daily sometimes twice a day.

 

[Free Feather]

It all depends on the age of the birds, the size of the coop, the number of birds, the amount of time they spend in the coop, the litter material, the amount of fluffing and turning done, if there is something catching the night droppings, the food the birds eat, and your crap tolerance level. No numbers can be given without knowing all of these things. What that guy was probably talking about is deep litter, where you turn the litter and add carbons to balance out the nitrogen ratio. That system is really fragile in my opinion and depends on a lot of variables, and there are a lot of people who do it wrong. If done properly, and can build the immune system of chicks because of the exposure to things like coccidiosis early on.

 

[Mamachic1967]

Thank you, that sounds reasonable.