My coop is wet, sloppy and disgusting from the recent rains and from the girls constantly getting their coop wet from their waterer. Any suggestions on what I can use to dry it out? I want to clean it really well but I got to have it somewhat dry first. Thanks!
From your other thread on this subject https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/940090/wet-sloppy-coop-help and your comments in this thread I’m guessing you have one of those little elevated coops so popular in suburbia. A little extra information like that can help us visualize your problem. The type of waterer you are using needs to be very level and needs to maintain the vacuum. So make sure it is very level and that it holds water when level. Sometimes there are tiny holes somewhere that lets the water dribble out. That is totally unacceptable. Get a new one that works or come up with a different type of waterer. Read this article. It’s about runs but most of it applies to coops too. You might get some ideas from it. Pat’s Big Ol' Mud Page (fixing muddy runs): https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-fix-a-muddy-run Once you stop the waterer from leaking (or move it out of the coop) there are two basic concepts to keeping a coop dry. First keep water from getting in. On an elevated coop that’s mainly keeping rain from blowing in. Put your ventilation under overhangs or use shutters or some other method to stop water from getting in. Face your openings in the direction away from the rain if that applies to your location. The other concept is to get the water out once it gets in. In an elevated coop you don’t want a floor that becomes a pond but instead lets the water drain out. But really, if you are getting that much water you need to stop it from coming in to start with. The main thing is to have enough ventilation that the moisture will evaporate. In Southern California you are not worried about cold so lots of ventilation should not be a problem. In your heat lots of ventilation should be required. You can use bedding if you want and clean it out a lot less, but that is a management technique issue. It’s not really related to keeping the coop dry from rain getting in or a waterer leaking. If you have water coming into the coop in the amounts I think you are talking about the bedding will get wet anyway. The purpose of the bedding would be to absorb the moisture from the poop so you don’t get a moisture problem from that. If you clean every day that is not an issue. What bedding to use? I know you are on a budget. What materials are readily available to you at low or no cost? Some of the standards are wood shavings, straw, hay, and sand but many people use different things. Ground up or heavily mulched dry leaves, dry grass clippings, even Spanish moss are sometimes used. You just need something that will absorb the moisture and enough ventilation so it will dry out. And you need a plan to dispose of whatever you use. If you clean it out very often you can get quite a bit of volume. Composting is my method but many people in suburbia have a problem with that. Good luck!
Could I use dry leaves from when the gardener comes? I want to compost everything. Nothing gets thrown out.
We built our coop ourselves out of repurposed wood. We build it according to what space we had in our suburbia home. It is a two level coop with the bottom level leading out to the run.