Made a big mistake on Coop height - what to do now?

[MaureenC]

When I built the main living space for my girls, I allowed 18" headroom above the roost, and 18" below for them to use the floor space under the roost.

I forgot to allow 6" for the litter. So I decided I'll just use 2 or 3 inches of litter in the coop and rake it out more frequently, and only put 17" headroom on the roost.

Then I realized I also forgot to leave room for a poop board below the roost.

So if I put a poop board, and REALLY skimped how how much space I leave myself to clean it (I'll use boot trays)here is how it would look:

-------------roof-------------
17" headroom
---------------roost (2")-------------
2" boot tray room
--------------poop board--------------
12" crawl/crouch space
3" litter

Can adult chickens (buff orps) even use a 12" crawl space to get to the other side of the coop?? Maybe I should just forgo the poop board?

Will 17" headroom on the roost work?

Fumbling forward - any input would be appreciated - thanks...

 

[peepblessed]

Sorry for your coop trial! I would probably forgo the poop board but I guess it depends on their size. 17" head room would be fine for my EE's. Their coop door is only 9" high, so they duck a lot to enter.

 

[riverchicks]

How big is your coop? Maybe you want to leave out the boot trays & poop shelf and allow yourself the maximum amount of space. It sounds like you are doing deep litter method, you could just stir the poo into the rest of the shavings.

 

[teach1rusl]

Don'tcha hate when stuff like that happens???

So the interior is exactly 36 inches tall??? Since the roost will be so low (easy to hop up to), I'd probably just allow 16 inches of head room, 16 inches below the dropping board, and a few inches for roost/dropping board. I use a few inches of bedding (2-3), and places that get walked in a lot become bare floor soon enough. With dropping boards, there will be very few droppings in your bedding anyway - I replace bedding 2X a year - late fall and right after winter is over, and really wouldn't have to do that - as the bedding really only gets poop in it in winter time (when they spend more time inside). If you have any inches to spare w/the roost/dropping board, split it between the head clearance and space under dropping board.

 

[MaureenC]

Thanks so much for the replies - that helps A LOT!!!

Hubby is coming home within the next hour and my task while he was gone was to figure out how to solve the problem...

Much appreciated!!

 

[MaureenC]

Oh and for now I will leave off the poop board and see how it goes. And I'll use 16" head room over the roost. If it gets really smelly I'll add in the poop board later.

The coop ceiling is exactly 36" tall in the middle where the roost will be - the roof slopes from front to back, so actually they will have more like 18 or 19" headroom if they face forward where the bigger windows are. (if that makes sense.)

I'll try to post pics shortly - thanks again!!!

 

[Ole rooster]

Use 2 inches of sand. Easy to clean every morning and no oder to mention. Then just go on like you planned.

 

[NovaAman]

I don't have a poop board. I just clean the litter from under the roosts every other day or so. I didn't consider such a thing as a POOP board when I built my coop. I am thinking however of putting in 4 3 inch high strips across the floor to build kinda like an litter box and using sand in those area where they poop a lot so i can clean it like a litter box, and the pine shavings in the rest of the coop... See how that works. LOL. I am new to this too. and this is the first coop I built, its got an interior 4 ft high, 4 ft deep, and 8 ft long. I have to many chickens, and am considering now an addition if I can't get 4 of my chickens a new home soon. They are all little enough now... But will be to many soon...

 

[elmo]

You could also just set the poop trays on the floor. That's what I do with my little coop.

 

[Chicken Coach]

All great ideas, but if all else fail's, buy some bantams they are short and they don't eat much!!