New to chickens, questions about the floor in my "coop"

[DAVIS-EL-33]

Ok, so I am building my coop and am still in the construction phase. My biggest question is about the floor inside of my coop. I have put wire mesh as part of the floor inside of it to keep down on the mess. I also put a 3 foot by thirty inch piece of plywood inside of it in front of the door where the chickens will enter at night.(second picture is before i put the piece of plywood down, third pic shows it) It is right in the middle of the coop. Does anyone have a wire mesh floor in their coop or does everyone use a full plywood bottom in theirs? My thinking on this is underneath the "roosts" I would have it open so the poop would fall through on to the ground. My nesting boxes will be mounted where the open hole is on the side. Any help/opinions would be appreciated.

 

[calpal212]

Okay, first off, chicken wire is to big for chickens feet I would use 1/4" or 1/2" hardware cloth for the floor and even if you switched those out you would have to scrape the poop off of the wire every day because not all poop is solid. +if you do the wire floor it can cause drafts which most chickens hate. What are the dimensions of the coop? It looks like a 6'x4' and that can only hold 6 standard breeds. Hope this helps!

 

[DAVIS-EL-33]

Ok, the whole building is 8 ft by 12 ft, the coop is 8 ft 8 inches long and 32 wide. So would you recommend just going ahead and putting plywood all the way across it? I am looking for easy here.

 

[DAVIS-EL-33]

Also, where are you getting how many chickens to how much space? You are saying that a 6x4 enclosure is good for six chickens, is there a rule of thumb here for space? I am planning on having around fifteen birds, but the whole building is phase one, there is going to be a big fenced in chicken run around it to turn the birds out in as well.

 

[calpal212]

Each chicken needs 4 square feet of space in the coop and they need 10 square feet in the run

 

[calpal212]

You could only put about 5-6 chickens in that coop, I would just plywood on the floor and put in wood chips and clean it out it out once a month.

 

[Blooie]

I have yet to see chicken poop that would fall neatly through 1/4 or 1/2 inch hardware cloth, and chicken wire isn't real good for their feet. I know it sounds easy to have the poop "fall to the ground under the coop" but with your setup, even if that would work where would the poop end up? In your run section under the coop. You really wouldn't have saved any extra work because that area will get nasty real quick. So you are down to a couple of choices. You could go with your plywood and paint it with Black Jack, like so many others do. Easy to clean - hose it down. You could also by a linoleum scrap (those are usually really cheap) and put it down over your plywood for easy cleaning. Run it up the sides of the walls a couple of inches. Then put a layer of Sweet PDZ mixed with construction sand so you can just scoop out the poop - like cleaning a litter box. Again, think about how you will access the inside of the coop for cleaning.

You don't need that many nest boxes for the number of chickens your coop can hold. My 22 chickens (well, 19 now) use only 4 out of the 6 nests out there in their coop. With 6 chickens, 2 nest boxes is more than adequate.

Do you plan to leave the area between the roof and the wall of the coop open? If so, you can cover that with hardware cloth for ventilation. Could you show us a photo of the front part of the coop, maybe by standing in the run section and looking toward the coop? I'm a little concerned about the ventilation in the coop, but if you have more openings on the wall that faces the run that could make a difference in air flow in the coop as well.

 

[flyin-lowe]

You might just ad a floor and research the deep litter/deep bedding method. This site and youtube both have lots of information on them.

 

[ShrekDawg]

You might just ad a floor and research the deep litter/deep bedding method. This site and youtube both have lots of information on them.

Ok, so I am building my coop and am still in the construction phase. My biggest question is about the floor inside of my coop. I have put wire mesh as part of the floor inside of it to keep down on the mess. I also put a 3 foot by thirty inch piece of plywood inside of it in front of the door where the chickens will enter at night.(second picture is before i put the piece of plywood down, third pic shows it) It is right in the middle of the coop. Does anyone have a wire mesh floor in their coop or does everyone use a full plywood bottom in theirs? My thinking on this is underneath the "roosts" I would have it open so the poop would fall through on to the ground. My nesting boxes will be mounted where the open hole is on the side. Any help/opinions would be appreciated.

Just watched a great video on the deep litter thing here

I myself am still a little nervous about trying it in the coop but plan on using it in the run. You could always use sand in the coop and deep litter in the run. Both are really easy. Sand you can just scoop the poop with. You can also add a droppings board under the roost so you just have to scrape it off every morning. Then could use sand or just regular pine shavings and itd stsy clean. litter you just, from what I've seen, make it like a forest. It's not just stacking the litter deep. It's leaves, twigs, pine needles, anything, and its like a forest floor and the chickens scratch it up themselves. I'm gonna try it in my run

 

[DAVIS-EL-33]

I am sure that may be the rule of thumb, however my neighbor has a coop 5 by 5 and has fifteen in it, they all seem to be healthy and happy as they can be. If they need that much space I don't think anyone ever told them lol. I just cant imagine fifteen chickens needing an 8 by 8 enclosure, that is huge. Back to the ventilation, yes I am going to keep the areas open between the top of the wall and the roof, plus there is another large vent on the inside of the enclosure. I have decided to do a little renovation to the inside of the coop after looking at some of the other ones in here. Plywood floor with linoleum, and going to completely change the way my roosts are made.