Thanks for all your kind words. I'm going to have a hard time parting with this one.
I have dropping pits in almost all my coops. The poop falls though the chicken wire so the chickens can't scratch in it. Since 95% of all their pooping inside the coop happens while they are on their roosts, the coop stays pretty clean. In an ideal world...
You'd lift the pit once a week and stir the poop and shavings mixture and add some new shavings on top. I probably stir it once every 2 months
. This helps it compost inside the coop and if it's a good mixture will actually help keep them warm in the winter. It's not damp enough here to have the right mixture I don't think. Anyway, this way I clean the coop once maybe twice a year is all, and if you keep your chicken numbers down to 4 sqft per bird, you won't have a smell problem either.
It's worked out great for us. I've not done it in one of my coops because of the height problem and it's not a good setup for it, and it's been a stinking mess. Mostly because I've got to many chickens in there too. Because of age I've had to wait to move them to other coops. Now the ratio is lots better, but still I get poop kicked up into feeders and waters and places I don't in the other coops.
I also notice that my eggs stay really clean too. It's rare that I have to clean an egg.
