Nothing under the roosts, right?

[tororider]

When designing my coop, I wanted to make sure I knew a couple things. It is unadvisable to put anything under the roosts as that is where a lot of poop gathers right? I am trying to maximize a coop that will be 4-5 tall, 4-5 wide, and 3-4 long. It will be suspended 2' off the ground in a run. Thanks for any help.

 

[raindrop]

That's right. You also don't want any other surfaces in the coop that they could perch on. Nest boxes should have 45 degree slanted roofs (at least) or in a small coop that you will access the boxes from the outside, the partition could go all the way to the ceiling so the ONLY thing to perch on is the roost. Makes cleaning much easier. When I clean my walk-in coop, I put the straw under the roost on the compost, and them move the much cleaner straw from the rest of the coop under the roost and add fresh straw in those areas.

 

[LoneCowboy]

I put dropping pits under my roosts. They are 2' x 4' x 4" covered with chicken wire. The poop drops through so they can't dig in it, and they don't get it all over their feet, but they can still use that space. They walk on the pits and it doesn't hurt them, so it gives more floor space for my coop.

 

[tororider]

Great idea Lonecowboy. I assume that wire mesh would work as well. Do you have pictures of them? I would love to see them.

 

[patandchickens]

The way I'd put it is, "don't put anything under the roosts that you don't want pooed on".

A droppings board can IMO be really useful under the roost actually. In fact if you feel so inclined you can make the top of the nestboxes a droppings board - here is an example of a very small self-contained unit of that sort, but I've seen where people have done it on a much larger scale.

You scrape the poo off every morning to dispose of - makes a LOT less poo and moisture in the coop. I sprinkle a little bit of shavings from the floor on the droppings board afte I clean it, so the next night's poo doesnt' stick.

If you are wanting to put feeders or waterers under your roosts because of space limitations, you certainly can, just put them under a droppings board and make sure the droppings board is WELL wide enough (I would go with at least 16" if I had food or water under it).

Hope this helps,

Pat

 

[LoneCowboy]

I do, I'here you go. One side is leaning up against the wall, it's not supposed to be like that. Both are flat on the floor, this is before I put the chickens in, so I was still working on the coop.

Wire mesh should work ok, but remember that their poop gets really big when they get older, so you need it about the diameter of chicken wire or it won't fall through.

 

[tororider]

I am probably going to put 2-3 laying beds in there and raise them 1.5-2' off the floor to increase usable floor space. If I were to put fixed dropping pits down with removable floors underneath, do you think the chicken wire/wire mesh would get too messy?

 

[LoneCowboy]

My dropping pits aren't fixed, I just pick them up, and turn the litter every week or so and put them back down. I'm doing the deep litter method.

 

[tororider]

How is the smell with that method?

 

[LoneCowboy]

It's fine. Just got to turn it every so often. It's not bad at all, wish I could say that about the stinky chicks I have in my back room