Ideas on making in a poop board in a small space

[matimeo]

Here are a couple of pictures of the inside of my coop:

I'm toying with the idea of making some kind of a poop board. The inside of the coop pictured is only about three feet deep and not quite four feet long. You can see that the roost runs across the coop and over the top of one of the nest boxes. I'd like to make a poop board, but there is so little space it would take up the majority of the inside of the coop. This might not be the end of the world since the chickens really only go inside to lay and roost at night and our winters are mild, so they're never really confined. I had layed something on the floor, but it didn't really make any difference. The main reason I'm thinking of a designated poop collector is that it seems that a lot of straw goes to waste every week when I clean the coop and pretty much everything on the floor has to be thrown out. I'm composting it, but there is too much straw per the amount of poop that goes into the compost. Any suggestions or ideas would be welcomed.
Thanks!
Matimeo

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Ok here goes.... a couple of ideas:

How about Making a poop board that covers the whole coop between the nest boxes and the perch. make it come short of the back wall by a chicken width and build a ramp up so they can walk up to thier perch. Put a lip on the back edge so nothing falls back into the coop.

Or cutting the whole bottom out and putting in wire and put the poopboard under the wire and not have straw at all except for the nest boxes. you could then slant the poop board so that it self cleans into a tray. You could put the whole poop board and tray into a drawer of sorts that would keep the coop air tight if it gets cold where you are.

I am sure someone will have more ideas.

 

[elmo]

You could try a plastic boot tray under the roost. They're light and easy to take out in the morning to dump out into your composter (or wherever). Most of the poop rolls right off the plastic; I use an old garden trowel to scrape off the wet cecal droppings. Then I hose off the trays and replace them in the coop. Easy.

The other thing you could do is use sand inside your coop instead of straw. You pick out the dropppings from the sand with a kitty litter scoop or (what I use) a special scoop made for reptile tanks. It's just a sieve set on a handle. It catches the droppings and leaves the sand behind.

I use sand in my coop and runs, but I also use boot trays to catch nighttime droppings. I have a large boot tray that's about 4 feet long that I got from Gardeners Supply to fit a particlur space:

http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandw...efaultButton=findSimple&ViewAll=1&q=boot+tray

I have two smaller ones that I actually like better:

http://www.containerstore.com/shop/garage/lawnGarden?productId=10007173

They're lighter, and easier to maneuver out of the coop door (when they're filled with droppings, I really don't want to accidentally drop one).

The tricky thing for you would be to find one that fits your spot.

 

[elmo]

perchie.girl :

Or cutting the whole bottom out and putting in wire and put the poopboard under the wire and not have straw at all except for the nest boxes.

Chicken poop won't fall through the wire unless the spaces between the wires are very large...say more than 1" by 1", and even then some poop will catch on the wire. A wire floor like that would be very hard on a chicken's feet, too.​

 

[fl_deb]

I'm not sure if I can explain it well enough but here goes....

make a bracket that will securely hold a 12" x width poop board 4 inches or more under your roost board, when it is attached to your roost board.

Mine is the opposite of yours, the poop drop board is held securely by brace and the roost board is just laid on top of brace. Yes, sometimes roost board is dislocated, but they generally, still use the roost board, unless it fell to bottom of the coop. But that also lets me know whem more serious fighting maybe happening.

Hope this helps.

ETA: BTW Dollar Tree now carries those boot trays in two different sizes, so fo a dollar you could try the trays.

 

[redhen]

Yup.. get some kind of L brackets and just slide a "tray" of some sort underneath the roost..

Heres how i had my boards set up before.. (i dont use that shed as a coop anymore though)
Just make some kind of shelf or "L" brackets that trays can slide in and out , under the roosts..

 

[Wink]

Quote:
Dollar tree? Ok, I'm there!

 

[Redley]

Quote:
Redhen,
How big are your poop boards/droppings trays? They look much wider than the typical boot tray.
Are you filling them with pine shavings?
Thanks!
Redley

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Redhen,
How big are your poop boards/droppings trays? They look much wider than the typical boot tray.
Are you filling them with pine shavings?
Thanks!
Redley

Hi! They are rabbit cage trays... (the kind you can buy at TSC for the build your own rabbit cages..)
They have all different sizes to choose from...
And yes, we fill them with pine shavings..and every few days just dump the shavings out...
It really helps to keep the coop cleaner..

 

[teach1rusl]

Well my question is...how many chickens do you have? Large fowl or bantam. I guess I was wondering whether it'd be feasable to run the roost across the three ft. span???