How often to clean coop?

[Carolyn252]

Deep litter method. Pine shavings, eight inches deep, mixed with DE (food grade). I add a sprinkling of DE every month or so. Never, ever have any odor. Ever. Once a week or so, I give the whole thing a quick spritz from a spray bottle, just to avoid dust being thrown up when the hens get into a scratching around mood. I always keep a spray bottle in the coop, filled with a solution of half vinegar and half water. NO dropping board. IMHO, a dropping board is just make work. Without a dropping board, the poo just falls straight into the litter and disappears. The pine shavings absorb and compost the poo. It really does disappear. I keep a garden rake in the coop and once a week or so, I just give a quick 30 second raking to the whole setup just to make it all level and smooth. I keep a long handled barbeque scraper tool hanging in the coop and every morning I scrape the roosting board if there's any poo on it. Scrapes right off into the deep litter below. Quick spritz from the spray bottle, toss a small piece of paper towel onto the spritzed roosting board and then use the scraper tool to wipe down the board. I toss the towel right into the trash directly from the end of the scraper, so I don't ever touch anything yucky.

That way, the roosting boards are sparkling clean every day. No visible poo anywhere in my coop or run. It's all deep litter method.
Daily maintenance is usually zero. Only have to scrape and spritz and wipe the board if there happens to be poo on it. Takes MAYBE 60 seconds to do.

I empty the entire ChickArena (coop and run) ALL out every spring. Removing every bit of shavings, so there's nothing there but the clean bare earth.

Then I wash the entire plastic playhouse coop with bio friendly soap and water, and spray it down. First with my good ole vinegar and water spray, and then with an Oxine solution spray(one and a half ounces Oxine per quart spray bottle).

Then all fresh pine shavings go in. At least eight inches. My ChickArena is a fully wire walled run, nine feet by fifteen feet, with the playhouse coop freestanding in the middle of the run.

The removed litter goes into a brand new compost pile; the lawn's summer grass cuttings and autumn's fallen leaves go into that same compost pile. After sitting there for one year, it's ready for the vegetable garden beds. See the photo below:

 

[Ole rooster]

tmasker......that is my exact point. The thought of that gives me the willys.

Becca.......the sand cost right at $3.50 a bag. My coop is 5X8 and I have 6 bags in mine. I have it deeper under the roost, 3 inches, than the other section, around 2 inches. There also is no need scoop it all out but I do about once a month I will take my scooper and go to the floor just to be sure I didn't miss anything with the previous cleaning. No the sand don't need the cleaning every day but it's just so much easier with no odor doing it the way I do.

And no the chickens don't scratch in in. They only sleep and lay do their egg laying inside. All the feed and watering is done outside. By the time they get up I'm already up and have the pop door open so they spend no idle time inside.

 

[BeccaSmith]

Quote:
That is pretty inexpensive for the sand! The only reason I asked about the chickens scratching in the sand is because when we put fresh straw down they love to scratch in it. Thanks for the help!

This thread has been an awesome learning experience, I love getting to see what others are doing!

 

[moodlymoo]

I have never cleaned my coop and its been filled with chickens since spring. I use DLM. Every 6 weeks I add a new block of pine shavings. Every 3 weeks I stir it all up with a rake. When I add new pine I also toss in a bunch of DE and scratch and let the chickens do all the work. No smell, no bugs, no real issues.

 

[Dead Rabbit]

DLM here. no problems. droppings just compost away with the litter. i use mainly straw, but i also throw in some wheel barrow loads of wood mulch. when i rake my grass up after cutting, i throw some into the coops too. its not filthy, does not stink, and everything breaks down. i clean out twice a year. i use this method for another reason too. im into my garden and i compost alot. the DLM is an excellent way to create compost. when cleaned out, it generally goes right on the garden, before planting, and in fall after everything is done growing in the garden.

 

[groundpecker]

I clean coups and runs every 2 weeks. Cleaning everything i can, as clean as i can.

 

[nuttyredhead]

Quote:
What kind of sand do you get? Mine doesnt look like that????

 

[bald egg]

I put a thin layer of shavings on the dropping boards, or as my kids call it... "The Poop Deck" after I clean it. I scrape the soiled pine shavings and poo off every 3-4 days and toss it in the compost bin. Just use a 3" putty knife. That's as clean as it needs to be. They are removed and scrubbed twice a year with soap and water and a small amount of bleach. Waterer is cleaned with soap and water twice a week also. Entire process takes less than 20 minutes. New pine shavings are added to the nest boxes and they always push them out onto the floor of the coop. New shavings in the nest boxes, from the floor onto the poop deck then really dirty shavings into the compost bin. The circle of life for pine shavings.

 

[Mahonri]

I have an 8 X 10 coop and for at least the first two years we swept and mopped it EVERY week.

Now we go every two to three weeks.

Gives me more poop to compost.

My peas ,cabbage , broccoli , peppers and tomatoes are looking good in my garden today, I saw a couple of bell peppers that I'll pick to put in the green salad for Thanksgiving. Hope I'm picking peas by Christmas.

 

[Scooter&Suzie]

When I temp. had 8 chickens in a 3' by 3' coop I HAD to clean it out every Saturday. Now I am down to 5 hens, since I had to get rid of all 3 roosters (Ordinance Laws). I'm just gonna try to clean it out every other week, and see how that goes, when I clean it once a week I am barely cleaning up any junky stuff, pretty much all of it is clean bedding... I hate to throw all that away!

By the way, I know a 3' by 3' coop is too small, BUT I do have another coop, I just need to get it moved (VERY HEAVY) and attach the run, and put a door on the run. They are all right now as happy as can be, so I am not in any rush to move them, but I hope to work on it tomorrow, and maybe finish it next weekend.