Interior Coop Pics

[Feathersprings]

I have a tile floor in my coop and after a good cleaning I initially put down about 4-6 inches of shavings sprinkled with a little DE to help keep it dry. Then as the shavings breakdown or when it seems to need freshened up I put in another two or so inches of shavings. Then every three to five months, depending on the season I totally clean the shavings out and start over again.

Ok, I keep thinking it is not good to let the coop get that much poop and feed in the shavings... I am cleaning it out and changing shavings every week or two. At what point do you know you need to clean.. I keep reading about diseases caused by not clean coops etc so now am paranoid about it. My coop has a slightly raised wood floor covered with vinyl. Do you spot clean water spills ?

 

[Egrant97]

I have decided to go with shavings over what is going to be a wood floor. What is the DE that you mention sprinkling??

 

[diggergal]

I now have only 10 chickens in my 8 x 8 ft coop with large attached run. I have a poop board under the roosts and my waterer is setting up on a platform of landscaping bricks to keep shavings out of it. The chickens rarely spend time in the coop during the day except in rainy weather. Their run is covered but I guess I have prissy chickens. You kind of have to find what works best for your situation. I just couldn't change out the shavings as often as I wanted due to the expense. Keeping the shavings dry by sprinkling with DE and adding as needed has work best for me. I have had chickens for only a few years but I have not experienced any lice or diseases. I scrap my poop board weekly and if it has been an especially bad weather week and they have spent a lot of time in the coop I take a few scoops of shavings out before mixing fresh back. I have found invaluable help on this forum when setting up my coop. Good luck

 

[diggergal]

I have decided to go with shavings over what is going to be a wood floor. What is the DE that you mention sprinkling??

"Diatomacious Earth (often referred to as "DE") is an off white talc-like powder that is the fossilized remains of marine phytoplankton. When sprinkled on a bug that has an exoskeleton (such as bed bugs, ants or fleas) it gets caught between their little exoskeleton joints. As they move, the diatomaceous earth acts like razor blades and cuts them up."
That above quote is from a site on the Internet. I had to get you the correct spelling. I suggest you do some research on the benefits. Just make sure you are reading about FOOD GRADE DE. DE is also a great drying agent. I sprinkle it on my poop board and shavings. Again when I first got chickens I overused the DE and had terrible dust. You don't want too much for you and your chickens to breath. A little DE goes a long ways. I have had chickens for over two years and still have a about 20 lbs left of my 50 lb bag. I found it at a large feed distributor. It cost me about $30 for a 50 lb. bag. Search it on this forum and you will get lots of info, there are a few people that do not like it but I would say the vast majority love it.
It really dries out the poop and helps control smell and I have very few flies in my coop in the summer. I have not had a mite/lice problem yet on my chickens.

 

[boxofpens]

The 'people' side of the coop

The roost area with poop board
(I'm still trying to find granular PDZ
around here--> just ordered some from
ebay)


The nest boxes (Chicken wire was
only used between the people side
and the bird side of the interior.
Everything else is 1/2" hardware cloth.)


Ridge vent for heat escape and wire
to rafters (because we had one bird
that liked to roost up here). Also had
radiant barrier installed to keep coop
cool in the Texas heat (it works!).


The interior of all windows are framed
out and covered with hardware cloth.
They're hinged so we can get to the
real windows to open and close them.




Turbine for ventillation (Also framed
with hardware cloth <--screwed on so
we can remove it and clean any
debris or trapped animal if needed.)


The interior is painted and we have
linoleum on the floor. Oh... and my
husband picked the pink. And to
answer the question on everyone's
mind: YES, it really is as pink as
it looks! But our girls seem happy.

 

[JacqueOCS]

Here is the inside of our new coop. Nice and clean before we added the chickens..haha

Love it!!

 

[Quinstar]

This thread has given me so many ideas! Love them all!

 

[Laci7210]

This is the inside of my chicken house. It is an 8ft by 10ft. Right now, there are 9 hens in it, but I am going to add a few.They also have an outdoor run that is very big so they are VERY happy with their new home!

 

[Triplell]

Awesome thread.

 

[buckaroogirl]

This is the start of remodelling our coop. It's an old grain shed. We've just so far insulated one wall and husband built my girls some new boxes ( we were using cat litter boxes and they loved them!)
I live in Alberta so last year the poor girls had to live insulated with just a heat lamp in the -30c winter. But this year they will be insulated! I have around 30 chickens.
All these pics gave me some good ideas for the roosts!