New home owner - previous owners left their chickens!

[aart]

They don't look to be in too bad a shape....they are probably fine, and will be better with you caring for them.
But, yes the inside of coop looks pretty gross and not well thought out at all, the ramp under the roosts is just stupid.
Not surprising to hear they just abandoned then with no communication and then see the conditions of coop and run.

You can probably fix this up, but it will take time and resources.
Is the inside part of the coop 18' x 10'?
Is the shed a stand alone building?
Where does that door by the table/nests boxes go?

Some wider shots of the whole setup would help in making suggestions to improve.

Meanwhile, some shavings on the floor of coop and the first part of the run will help with odor.
I would worry about making things spin and span....that's is very rare in a chicken coop, there's always poop on something.

First thing I would do is move the nests to the bottom shelf of that table,
and move the ramp out from under the roosts put it on the 'front' of the table and prop the low end on a cinder block standing tall.

Are you sure you can't unscrew the pieces?
How handy are you?
Probably have lots of things to do in the new house, time and resources for coop being limited.
Grubby job ahead, I use chunks of thick cardboard to kneel/lay on coop floor when I have to work in there.

 

[Howard E]

On the topic of the previous owners, hopefully them abandoning the birds is a sign they are out of the chicken business for a while. I suspect it did not work out well for them. They did some things right and a whole lot wrong. I don't attribute mistakes like that to malicious intent, more out of ignorance. Ignorance of what to build, how to build it, how to manage it and how to maintain it.

Hopefully the rest of the place is to your liking.

Some observations to assist with moving forward.......

The back roost appears to be too close to the back wall. In general, a minimum of 8 inches of space between the back roost and wall and 10 or 12 inches would be better. That might eliminate some of the streaks on the wall. I would be curious to know how close that is now. You appear to have far more roost space than is needed for the amount of birds you have, so that could be cut down. Or......if you have the space and might someday want to get more birds, you could leave as is, but cut down the length by putting up a support post on the end now supported by the table. That looks to be some creative redneck engineering. On the roost space, in general 8 to 10 linear inches of roost space per bird. Again, move it out at least 8 to 10 inches from the back wall and about 16 inches or so apart. You appear to have room to do that. If you have birds that can't make that leap (my roost bars look like that and are higher, but my birds are still flighty pullets), you can stagger the roosts in height to make a ladder style of them, keeping in mind that nearly all of them will try for the highest roost bar.....the one in the back. If you have room for all of the birds on the high bar, no worries. If not, expect fist fights and wrestling matches as they all fight for space up there. The second part relating to height of roost bars and them getting down is they have to have a reasonable amount of "glide path" to get down. A long enough "runway" so to speak. If they try to fly down and hit the far wall, they are going to be reluctant to do so. Mine are funny about that. Some fly as far as they can to the opposite wall....often hitting it, while others (mainly the RIR) seem to be able to parachute straight down.

The nest boxes..........so the tops of those are higher than the roost bars. Do birds roost on top of them? The tops of nest boxes should be sloped steep enough so birds cannot perch on them.....if they try they will slide off. Your nest boxes have a gentle slope, but what is worse, it is to the back wall....so they are reversed. Instead of discouraging roosting up there, they not only made it possible, but nearly ideal. Was there manure caked on top of the nest boxes? If so, that is why. In the short run, the nest boxes you have may work. Spin them around and mount them so the tops of the boxes are lower than the roost bars. Where they are is fine. You could have 2 or 3 side by side or even 4 boxes mounted 2 x 2, with one row on top of the other. Just make sure the top has a steep slope to the middle of the room and not to the wall!

The concrete floor is ideal. For permanent coops, it is the best. Two options for managing it. A light coating of litter (wood chips, straw, hay, pine straw, etc) that is a couple inches deep, and something you shovel out every few weeks or so.......or.......deep litter up to a foot or more. Something you only remove once a year or so. Basically that becomes a cold composting bed. Your choice, depending on how you want to manage it. If you go the shallow litter option, the door as is should work. At worst, you might have to lop off an inch or so at the bottom and built up the threshold to match. If you go the deep litter route, reversing the door to swing out may be needed, as would a board at the entrance to keep the deep litter contained within. Think of the litter on the floor as the diaper you have to change now and then. Maybe the previous owners didn't realize they had to change it? BTW, same situation exists in the run. If you don't want a muddy run and all that goes with it, be thinking some type of litter. My birds are running around on a deep layer of grass hay and it is working for them.

More pictures from a wider angle will help. Am curious to see what they did for ventilation.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It needs cleaning but as you say, some areas are eternally covered in poop. Chickens poop a lot wherever they are, that’s just what they do. Usually they are moving around so it doesn’t build up that much but at night they are roosting and not moving around so it builds up. Poop management is always an issue, especially under the roosts, but you do not need to keep it as clean as your bathroom. Some chicken poop or chicken poop stain is not going to hurt anything. Don’t set unrealistic expectations for how clean it has to be, you’ll work yourself to death and come to hate the chickens.

The test for how much poop is too much is smell. If it stinks you should have cleaned it out earlier. Wet poop is the culprit, wet poop breaks down with anaerobic activity and can really stink. The poop can get wet from the weather, from waterers, or just from fresh poop building up thick enough that it doesn’t dry out. That’s why the area under the roosts can be so critical. It can really build up there and stay wet.

That is a great size for nine chickens. I’m not sure if the 10’ x 18’ includes the run or not, but that is a huge amount of room in the coop just from the pictures. As long as the coop floor doesn’t get wet you can probably add some bedding of some type and probably never have to clean it out for a year except under the roosts. The other poop should be spread out that much. As long as it is dry, you are in great shape. Having the door open out which is probably the easiest thing to do is a great idea. If you were building new raising the door so it is always above the bedding is an easy way to manage this but you probably don’t have that option.

Where are the chickens roosting now, on the roosts or in the nests? The reason you want the roosts higher than the nests when you are building the coop is that the chickens tend to roost on the highest thing available and you don’t want them to sleep in your nests. They poop a lot at night and you don’t want poopy eggs. But the key is that they might might might sleep in the nests, not that they absolutely will. If your chickens are sleeping on the roosts and not in the nests, you do not have an emergency. You don’t have a problems that has to be fixed right now. Life is actually good the way it is. If you ever add new chickens it would be good to have the nests lower than the roosts for sure, there is a reasonable chance the new chickens would sleep in the nests for a while. But if they are sleeping on the roosts don’t stress yourself over a problem that does not exist.

I put my juvenile roost over my nests. When I integrate the young chicks sleep there until they move to the main roosts. I use the top of my nests as a droppings board. Even if the chickens are sleeping on top of the nests and leaving poop on top of the nests, you do not have a problem as long as the inside of the nests where the eggs are stays clean. Don’t go looking for problems that don’t exist.

I’m not sure why you are that concerned about the stones in the run? They are rounded off, not sharp, so the chicken swill not hurt themselves scratching on them. They might be hard for you to walk on, you might twist an ankle.

A muddy run can be a problem. They poop out there too and if it gets wet it can smell. You might read through this to see if you can get some ideas to fix it. Sometimes when it sets in wet there just isn’t a lot you can do. Even if you cover it rain will blow in from the side.

Pat’s Big Ol' Mud Page (fixing muddy runs):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-fix-a-muddy-run

One thing you do not want to do is change the drainage so water runs into the coop. That is huge. Is the run where you are planning on adding the sand? If you can build the run up so water drains off of it to other lower areas you can do yourself a lot of good. If the area is low so water stands in it, just adding sand won’t really help, the water will stay there under the sand. When I built my coop I hauled in some dirt to raise the floor level enough so water doesn’t run in, then put the bedding down. It stays dry. Wet is your enemy as far as smell goes, whether in the coop or in the run.

I don’t have a clue what is going on with that hen that doesn’t want to get down from the roosts. Is that the one you show on the roost so she is not a Silkie that cannot fly? She has plenty of room to spread her wings and fly down, which is what mine do off of the 5’ high roosts. Is one of her wings hurt? You might look at her wing flight feathers to see if they have been clipped.

Those are not what we call ladder roosts. A ladder roost is like a ladder leaned against the coop wall. This link should give you some photos. If you decide to build a roost like this to help that hen, 12” up and 12” out is a general recommendation on dimensions.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lad...=MorFV6OFGYnSmwGRj5HIDA#imgrc=Q9vcTbpyh86jKM:

If you must rebuild everything in there, the way I determine height is to figure out where the top of the bedding will be, then set the nests. Some people are really happy with nests on the floor, others like them raised up higher so they don’t have to bend as much to get the eggs. Then make the roosts higher than the nests. Usually a foot higher than the top of the nests is good.

Looking at your next to last photo that shows the nests, you might cut those nests off if you can’t remove them and put a flat piece of plywood to cover that so poop does not drop through and put the nests on that lower shelf. That way you could leave your roosts as they are.

You have a tremendous amount of room in there which gives you a lot of flexibility to do things. There are just so many different ways you can do any of this. Yes, it needed to be cleaned out but people often care a lot more about most of these things than the chickens do. As far as I am concerned what your chickens really need to stay healthy is clean water appropriate food, and a dry place to stay. A little poop isn’t going to hurt them as long as it is dry.

I agree chicken TV is often better than anything on cable, satellite, or antenna. They are fun to have and fun to watch. Plus they give you eggs. With room like that they don’t have to be a lot of work either, maybe do something with poop that builds up under the roosts and clean the rest once a year. Just don’t set your expectations too high as to how clean it has to be.

Good luck and welcome to the adventure.

 

[aart]

.... Two options for managing it. A light coating of litter (wood chips, straw, hay, pine straw, etc) that is a couple inches deep, and something you shovel out every few weeks or so.......or.......deep litter up to a foot or more. Something you only remove once a year or so. Basically that becomes a cold composting bed. .....

I use a just few inches of pine shavings and only clean out once or maybe twice a year.....
.....but I use a poop board under roost and have a very dry coop, raised wooden floor covered with heavy vinyl.

Many options for depth and change out intervals.....time, observation, and experience will show what works best in the long run.

 

[TerryH]

I think it's great that you have adopted the unplanned birds!! Seems like you've taken to chickeneering very quickly. They are very addictive.

I also use a few inches of pine shavings and a poop tray with PDZ. Haven't had any issues with smell at all. The chickens keep it stirred up pretty well. I throw out a handful of meal worms or scratch every once in a while to keep them scratching around. Has worked very well for us.

I think you'd be well served to rebuild those roosts and nest boxes if that's something that's within you skill set or perhaps hire it done. Agree with the other comments that the roosts are too close to the wall and the ramp in the middle of the roosts is not a great idea. The nest boxes need to be lower than the roosts.

I wouldn't worry about those rocks in the run but perhaps some hay or straw would help with the mud and serve to entertain the chickens in the process.

 

[Birdydeb]

You have gotten some great advice. Lucky you with so much room to work with! I can commiserate....our used coop was almost as bad inside....almost. I am afraid you have me beat. LOL I thought the combined roost/nest box arrangement that ran down one side of my coop couldn't be removed either. Some really creative "redneck engineering" as someone said but we finally got it unscrewed from the wall and carried it out in one piece. I ended up happiest just starting over but I am sure with a fresh move your time is probably limited and what you have can be worked with. We had flooding at the beginning of summer and I was just about to give up on keeping my run dry. It is dry now because it hasn't rained or at least not at that level again. I finally resorted to getting some Stall Dry to throw down with pine shavings on top and then straw. I throw my grass clippings in every time we mow and now everything is finally dry. It got so bad at one point with the continual rain that I put boards down to walk on! Hopefully, you won't have that kind of chaos and just using any of the litter mentioned will be sufficient but Stall Dry will help if you have any water that won't seem to dry up...it will soak it up and disintegrate into sawdust. That and addressing our drainage problems and I have a dry run now.

 

[3riverschick]

Hi,
Yes, they can injure their legs and feet by jumping down off a high roost. large fowl roost for heavy breeds should be no more than 18" off the ground. The ladder roost is a good idea. they can choose their own height and you have plenty of room for one. I once had an older Speckled Sussex hen I got from a lady who also had ginnie hens. The ginnies like to perch up high so the lady had 5 ft. high roosts for them. This poor Sussex hen had injured her feet and legs so often from jumping down from that high perch that she could barely walk anymore. It was so sad to see her hobbling around the poultry yard. You only need one nest box for every 5 hens. 2 should be plenty.
Honestly, I didn't use roosts for my birds. They just snuggled down in an area of deep, soft kiln dried pine shavings ( white bale at Tractor Supply). Have you thought of using a bale of timothy hay for flooring you coop? The birds just love it and it smells so sweet, smile. Maybe pick one up from a local farmer(craigslist) or the bulletin board at you local feed store.
Purina Flock Raiser has enhanced their feed with pre and probiotics and yeast for birds of all ages and sexes in a flock. A good feed for your birds. Now when they start to lose their feathers and go into a molt, switch them to Nutrena Feather Fixer feed. You will be amazed how beautifully their new feathers grow in! Plus you may still get eggs during the molt ( a 6 week time when hens often stop laying).
Don't worry about the birds being hesitant about their new clean digs. chickens love cleanliness. It is so cute to watch them. When I cleaned the coop, they all came in to "inspect" it. Clucking softly to each other, happily checking it out, content. I can almost hear them clucking to each other happily, "Oh May, it's so soft and clean!" " Why March! It's s soft and easy on my feet. " "Oh and look! What a nice soft dry nest to lay my eggs." Chickens, Gotta love um! hee, hee. ( yes and I did name my hens after months of the year, smile.)
BTW, those are some really nice chickens you have. They look purebred. Anyone?
The white ones are white leghorns? Anyone want to weight in on the breed of the patterned birds?
Best,
Karen

 

[JulieAnn0923]

Ooooh my goodness. Thank you everyone, SO MUCH, for all of the information you're providing! I have been so lost the last few weeks and had absolutely no one I could ask for advice. This message board is a dream. As far as being a new home owner and dealing with home stuff, we've done all we're going to do for now, and we've completely shifted our focus on to the chickens; that's how I landed here.

I have more pics, not great ones, and answers to some of the questions.

The coop is attached to the back of our garage.

Regarding the current roost and how close it is to the wall. The roost closest to the wall sits 3 inches away from the wall, and there is 6 inches between the two roosts. The issue I have with the outer roost is that it's about 3 inches in from the door frame, so I'm constantly having to move bums when I'm putting them to bed. Fortunately, they're pretty okay with my doing that.

I'm not sure if this counts as ventilation, but there's a window in the coop that was jammed shut when we got here. We've managed to open it to get some air in, but It's still pretty stagnant. Better than it was, though.

The back door you see in the coop (I can't currently get it open) leads to this tiny fenced in 3 x 6' cement area. I posted a pic from what I could see from the window. We got it open when we did the big poop removal, and the ladies were eager to investigate. It was pretty funny. Once I walked out f the coop, they went parading in to see what it was about.

The wider shots were hard to get. I can't open the main door all the way because the cement isn't entirely level and the wood door is warped, worse than usual because of the rain. Since we've shoveled out the poop, we can open it further, but that's about as far as it goes right now. Working it open more makes the wood at the base splinter.

As far as the chickens roosting on the nesting boxes, it doesn't look like that's the been the case. They were dirty with matted dust and mold, but no poop.

Thank you for the information on the bigger birds and the roost height. Two of the girls - the BIG white one (Dorothy), and one of the lighter brown ones - are the heaviest of the 9. The lighter brown one (Rosie) is the one that has the problem hopping down. Dorothy uses the chicken ladder to get down from the roost. I'll definitely make sure I tier their new roosts so that she doesn't have such a hard time getting into the run in the morning. It's pretty hard to watch; she gets really worked up.

As far as removing the wood contraption piece-by-piece, it's doable, but we'd need to saw it apart. I went back and investigated a bit more; for whatever reason, they hammered and glued pieces in, not just one or the other. The interior of the coop is vinyl, not wood, so I'm hoping removing everything isn't going to destroy the walls.

If anyone has any idea on what breeds of chickens I have based on what you can see, that'd be great to know. Dorothy - she's on the roost in the pics - is GIANT. I was doing some reading online since she's so much bigger than the others, and I think she might actually be a meat chicken. I can get some better pics of girls if it'll help, too.

Wide shot entering the coop.

.


Wide shot from other end of the coop.



Ventilation?



Area outside the back door of the coop.

 

[Neal84]

Here is a picture of my roost area, I have 30 layers right now, but maybe this will give you an idea, they jump up each tier all the way to the top every night some have to settle for the second bar down, but they love it

 

[Neal84]

Ooooh my goodness. Thank you everyone, SO MUCH, for all of the information you're providing! I have been so lost the last few weeks and had absolutely no one I could ask for advice. This message board is a dream. As far as being a new home owner and dealing with home stuff, we've done all we're going to do for now, and we've completely shifted our focus on to the chickens; that's how I landed here. I have more pics, not great ones, and answers to some of the questions. The coop is attached to the back of our garage. Regarding the current roost and how close it is to the wall. The roost closest to the wall sits 3 inches away from the wall, and there is 6 inches between the two roosts. The issue I have with the outer roost is that it's about 3 inches in from the door frame, so I'm constantly having to move bums when I'm putting them to bed. Fortunately, they're pretty okay with my doing that. I'm not sure if this counts as ventilation, but there's a window in the coop that was jammed shut when we got here. We've managed to open it to get some air in, but It's still pretty stagnant. Better than it was, though. The back door you see in the coop (I can't currently get it open) leads to this tiny fenced in 3 x 6' cement area. I posted a pic from what I could see from the window. We got it open when we did the big poop removal, and the ladies were eager to investigate. It was pretty funny. Once I walked out f the coop, they went parading in to see what it was about. The wider shots were hard to get. I can't open the main door all the way because the cement isn't entirely level and the wood door is warped, worse than usual because of the rain. Since we've shoveled out the poop, we can open it further, but that's about as far as it goes right now. Working it open more makes the wood at the base splinter. As far as the chickens roosting on the nesting boxes, it doesn't look like that's the been the case. They were dirty with matted dust and mold, but no poop. Thank you for the information on the bigger birds and the roost height. Two of the girls - the BIG white one (Dorothy), and one of the lighter brown ones - are the heaviest of the 9. The lighter brown one (Rosie) is the one that has the problem hopping down. Dorothy uses the chicken ladder to get down from the roost. I'll definitely make sure I tier their new roosts so that she doesn't have such a hard time getting into the run in the morning. It's pretty hard to watch; she gets really worked up. As far as removing the wood contraption piece-by-piece, it's doable, but we'd need to saw it apart. I went back and investigated a bit more; for whatever reason, they hammered and glued pieces in, not just one or the other. The interior of the coop is vinyl, not wood, so I'm hoping removing everything isn't going to destroy the walls. If anyone has any idea on what breeds of chickens I have based on what you can see, that'd be great to know. Dorothy - she's on the roost in the pics - is GIANT. I was doing some reading online since she's so much bigger than the others, and I think she might actually be a meat chicken. I can get some better pics of girls if it'll help, too. Wide shot entering the coop. . Wide shot from other end of the coop. Ventilation? Area outside the back door of the coop.