How to clean poop inside of an all grass walk in chicken run?

[1chip2chicks3cheeks]

A little late to this thread but thought I might share my thoughts

I find that with a larger run, the poop doesn’t really seem to pile up. With the chickens having a larger area to explore, and scratching all the time, the poop just gets broken up and buried with the help of the chickens. And with dry dirt in the run, the poop is dried out easily. I actually hardly ever notice poop in the chickens run, but there is ALWAYS poop in the coops with our set up. I think that since you still have grass, the poop isn’t easily dried out by the dirt and scratched in by the chicken! So scooping or watering it in would be your best bet until the grass is destroyed. But, thinking back when our run still had grass, I still never noticed any piling up of the poop and I think that is mainly due to having a very big area for the run, so everything is more spread out and isn’t as much of a problem as the chickens scratch it and it decomposes.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

Is she your only chicken?

Yes she is the only chicken, she was a rescue. I read another thread the OP did

 

[BDutch]

No it has not. My grass doesn’t smell. It has to be watered anyways. Plus what I do is try to just really saturate the poop to the ground. I thought that watering the poop would be better for the grass since fresh chicken poop can kill the grass or cause grass burn… but by diluting it I figured the benefits of the nitrogen would go down to the roots. I am trying to work around my current situation of finding solutions l. Great ideas!!

My experience is that there no problem with poop on the grass. I don’t rake it, break, scoop it or hose it. I have 7 bantams on approx 400 m2 grass for approx 3 hours a day. They have more/other places they come. And are in a run most of the time.

As long as the grass is growing its just fine and nutritious for new grass to grow. But because of scratching some grass will disappear.

There is another problem however. Chickens are not solitary animals. They need company. You could /should buy her at least one lady friend to keep heep her company (not a chick),

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

I'm a big fan of Deep Bedding/Deep Litter myself and never scoop poop

If I had to scoop poop, or clean the coop more than once a yearish I would have to reconsider this whole thing!

 

[Akachicklil]

Yes she is the only chicken, she was a rescue. I read another thread the OP did

Yes she is. But I am getting another one soon!

 

[Akachicklil]

Dear Chicken Army Corp ,

I have decent size walk in chicken run with a coop inside of it. The run is grass. I have a bantam. I want to know how to clean the poop. I was watering the poop into the soil as a way to clean it. However I was advised by a fellow member of BYC that I was basically doing a big NO NO. I didn’t realize that hosing chicken poop into the grass was bad!? I would always make sure that it would break up and dissolved into the soil.

How do you clean book on grass? The chickens do not poop in a designated area like some of y’all with your lovely human house sized coops… Do I have to kill my grass by replacing it with sand instead? I was hoping to keep the grass.
Check out my pictures before for reference.

Thank you and Cheers!

Update: so the grass in the middle has gotten flatter and the grass on the sides of the inside of the coop are tall and green. The grass outside the enclosed is lovely as she doesn’t walk out of the enclosed. .. I took the advice about not watering the poop in the grass because one of you convinced me into getting worried about attracting flies and also eating poop… The only down fall of that is thad I have also neglected to water the area of the grass that is flat… I am sort of not sure if I should allow the center to die or if I should water the grass, revive it and keep it short. I have been picking up the poop with a dog poop scooper. So thanks for that recommendation. That seems to work well…
Here is what it looks like this far. My goal is to have a nice chicken friendly garden…. What materials do you all thing would look nice as the poop medium…??? If you have a similar set up to me please share a pic.

 

[Akachicklil]

If I had to scoop poop, or clean the coop more than once a yearish I would have to reconsider this whole thing!

Sorry to hear that. Not me. I’m determined. We are all different though. If you have 100s of chickens it makes sense to do the deep littler. But perhaps not for two three chickens

Most chickens eat and dig up the grass so it may not be able to stay and if you don’t want to put sand down you can put hay or wood chips and with wood chips you can add a little more if it gets a little dirty and with sand you can use a scoop similar to a cat litter scoop and pick up the poop and add them to your compost pile but sadly your grass may not be able to stay

do you have pictures to give me ideas with my current set up by any chance? I’m trying to picture it… I know the grass will die cause I have not watered the center portion of the grass inside the enclosed to avoid flies and bugs… but like hmmm? Also I notice long grass makes it harder to scoop all the poop… so yeah something dry sounds good.. the one plus side about the way it is now is that I can see exactly where the poop spots are. I guess it would be the same with wood chips.. if I get sand I don’t want it to get all over the grass that is on the outside of my enclosed… hmmm… also don’t you think the sand might get hot in the summer and cause burns??? I do have a tarp as shown on this photo.

 

[Akachicklil]

Yes she is the only chicken, she was a rescue. I read another thread the OP did

Yes for now. But I am getting more next week.

 

[Akachicklil]

My experience is that there no problem with poop on the grass. I don’t rake it, break, scoop it or hose it. I have 7 bantams on approx 400 m2 grass for approx 3 hours a day. They have more/other places they come. And are in a run most of the time.

As long as the grass is growing its just fine and nutritious for new grass to grow. But because of scratching some grass will disappear.

There is another problem however. Chickens are not solitary animals. They need company. You could /should buy her at least one lady friend to keep heep her company (not a chick),

Thank you!! She has a lady friend coming very soon!!!! Can’t wait!!!! Then of course after that lady friend I’m sure I will get another lady friend. But just so you know….. This chicken is very different than most chickens. She knows I am her leader. She squats when I see her… she is thriving and is living her best life. She gets individualized attention that most of the of you I’m sure may not be able to give because: A. It’s not practical to give individualized attention to each chicken in the gigantic flocks of chickens most of you folks have and B. You guys don’t need to because of the large flocks… they take care of themselves. I have spent lots of time with her in order to compensate and it has worked thanks be to God. She is super happy. If you want to see how amazingly happy and well taken care of she is you should follow her instagram account. https://www.instagram.com/betsymychicken/

 

[BDutch]

Thank you!! She has a lady friend coming very soon!!!! Can’t wait!!!! Then of course after that lady friend I’m sure I will get another lady friend. But just so you know….. This chicken is very different than most chickens. She knows I am her leader. She squats when I see her… she is thriving and is living her best life. She gets individualized attention that most of the of you I’m sure may not be able to give because: A. It’s not practical to give individualized attention to each chicken in the gigantic flocks of chickens most of you folks have and B. You guys don’t need to because of the large flocks… they take care of themselves. I have spent lots of time with her in order to compensate and it has worked thanks be to God. She is super happy. If you want to see how amazingly happy and well taken care of she is you should follow her instagram account. https://www.instagram.com/betsymychicken/

Yes , you are probably right about solitary chickens being happy with human companion if you are around and about more than just a few hours a day.

There was one member ( @HeiHei123 ? ) who had a rooster in his appartement who was alone too. Bc lots of people here told him he needed a flock, he brought him to a friend who had several chickens. But there he was bullied too much. So he picked him up again.
And they lived happily together again .

I suppose the gras in you’re run is also flat snd not thriving bc you probably walk on it quit often.