I inherited 22 hens and a rooster. Cleaning help please!!!

[MamaBirda]

Is there a concern for the deep bedding and the amount of rain/moisture?

Thank you for such great feedback. I guess I'm concerned with the smell, respiratory issues and poop smear. The pine tends to stick to their feet and they track poop everywhere. It's also like paste to scrape off once it dries. I figured with sand, it might act as an exfoliating mechanism and since it's heavier it may tend to stay on the floors/poop boards and not all over the walls. At least in my mind theoretically it would work that way... Looking for anyone with this experience. I'll post more thorough pics today.
Please allow me to add the run is not covered, I plan to add roofing this spring, but the rain just soaks everything allowing the birds track in mud/poop/etc as well.

 

[aart]

Definitely need more pics, the total number of birds,(just saw 22 birds),
and the dimensions(length) of the roosts.

 

[Banana01]

I like sand for drainage properties, but your coop is a dry coop where water should not accumulate.

Have you tried bare floors, or putting a cover over the bare floors? I put down rice bags sometimes and remove them or swap them out. But Im still cleaning every day if i do that.

For the wet, muddy, droppings covered conditions, i use bare floor and let the mud and droppings accumulate. But i have an open coop so 100% ventilation. I dont know what to do in a closed coop.

 

[MamaBirda]

This is a good note to make

This is a good note to make. I also don't feed or water inside the henhouse, so they don't poop much in there except overnight.

Yes. I'm considering moving their food out to the run on e it's securely covered.

 

[MamaBirda]

Going to wait on more coop photos to see if I can make a better suggestion other than changing the layout in there (you have a good amount of actual floor space but it is cluttered in there!)

For the run, two things: see about improving the drainage if drainage is an issue at the location, and also consider switching to deep litter. My run is uncovered and I had a mud/odor issue when I first started, but I started using deep litter and it gradually fixed itself with no extra effort from me.

Start off with a base of chunky wood chips for drainage and aeration. Ideally you'd want aged chips but it's easier to get fresh ones and set aside for aging (though you can start building up thin layers of chips immediately to help with your mud issue). If you have room in the yard to hold onto a load of chips, tree companies (at least in my area) are always looking to offload chips and will do so for free/a small tip.

Now it's a little late in the season for gathering these, but if you have neighbors still putting out bags of dried leaves, those are a great add in on top of the chips. I store bags of dried leaves in my greenhouse each fall for use in the run. Non-toxic weeds and garden trimmings can also be added through the year. In summer, I add in short grass clippings left out a day or two to dry.

My uncovered run floor the morning after a night of heavy rain... it's surface dry even though there's standing puddles in the lawn surrounding the run.
View attachment 2914574

I also use wood chips as my main litter inside the coop, mainly because it's free and readily available, however my birds don't poop a lot inside the coop as I mostly feed and water outside (I keep 1 dry feeder inside the coop). As I do not use poop boards I buy hemp bedding for use under the roost so I can sift poop out for composting.

View attachment 2914577

This setup looks great. I think my roosts are too close together. Wish I had more options to distance inside the coop.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I'm thinking of reinforcing the mid beam to be able to take out the middle floor beams... I don't know for sure if they're even load bearing. Doing this and moving food and water into run may free up space in the coop for sleeping and nesting and also help the poop situation a bit.

Yes, that would be a great thing to figure out if those supports in the middle are load bearing or not - if not, I would definitely consider removing them as they're eating up space and making it harder for you to access the coop.

Like several others on here, I also have some covered feeding areas out in the run to make up for the lack of roof/weather protection in my run. It really does make a difference to encourage the flock to mainly stay in the run during the day - my coop stays dry despite the regular rain and I only have to scoop up a couple poops in the main portion of the coop each day, as they're not in there long enough to be pooping in there.

 

[MamaBirda]

Deep bedding absorbs moisture from the poop and from tracked-in mud and helps it dry -- as long as there is enough volume of bedding and as long as it stays fluffy.



If you're having odor problems with that much space for your birds I suspect that you need either more ventilation total or more top-level ventilation.

Alternately you might not be using enough depth of bedding to rapidly dehydrate the poop.

Since you've got poop boards, which I don't use, I'm going to tag @DobieLover and @aart to have a look at the arrangement.

I'm also tagging @rosemarythyme who lives in your general area, IIRC.

Thank you soon much! I'll get those photos posted in a couple hours or so...

 

[NatJ]

the total number of birds,(just saw 22 birds)

The title says 22 hens and 1 rooster, so that makes 23 total.

 

[NatJ]

Yes, @NatJ ...you can see I corrected my post.

You corrected "how many" to say there are 22.
But you forgot the rooster, who makes 23.

 

[MamaBirda]

Wow. That's a LOT of poop!

I have 27 birds that I'll call "23 LF equivalent" to account for the bantams and mid-sized birds. They have 25' of roost space over lipped boards. It takes me no more than 20 minutes to do chores in the morning.
View attachment 2914599
I'm approaching peak poop board load as the days get shorter. I clean the boards daily and it takes about 1.5 weeks to fill a cat litter bucket that weighs about 40 pounds full.
I strongly suggest getting a solid roof on the run and installing gutters to divert run off away from the setup.
As has been suggested, wood chips are a great substrate. I use them and also allow my flock out of their coop/run combo daily. I have never removed anything from the run. I just add wood chips as needed.
View attachment 2914598
I keep all the food and water in the run. Getting feeders and waterer out of your coop would help with the crowding in there and make it easier for you to work in there.

I LOVE your setup. So open and spaced out.