Official BYC Poll: How Often Do You Clean Your Coop?

[3KillerBs]

Ah, Bible study in a chair in the chicken run in the evening sounds marvelous! Morning or evening or midday, we all need our soul-soothing relaxation time, don't we? My best meditation time is playing hymns on the harp on the porch with the chickens or on some mountain or by some stream with the dogs. I know this is a chicken forum, not a harp one, but I want to share with you the pretty places I've been blessed to worship with my harps.

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There are not enough upvotes on the internet for this!

 

[Outta Here]

P.S. I'm one of those barefoot fanatics who hikes up mountains and walks 2-4 miles a day in our desert barefoot. The only stickers out there are 2" mesquite thorns, but I'd have to walk blindfolded to step on one. Strangely, the most treacherous part is crossing my yard-there are horrid grass burrs (like the one I swallowed and had to have surgery) that grow near any irrigation! But the path to my barn is clear, thank goodness!

 

[Outta Here]

There are not enough upvotes on the internet for this!

Wowee, what a thing to say!...Awww, you are just sweet.

 

[Chicklove4ever]

When I clean my chicken house I have to...
~Wear a mask
~Wear boots
~Wear glasses
~Turn on a fan
~Open the windows

Don't even ask what it's like in the 105F summer.

Same here! That's why I clean the coop at night. Even though the girls bicker a bit! It gets done.

 

[Myjenny]

Less in the summer, the nights in Seattle are short. More often as it gets dark and rainy=more time in the roost. I have a pull out drawer with plastic trays. No bedding, they use ladders and hop to get to the roosts so no feet in poop. The poop dries up in the summer and shrinks; in winter it’s much denser and heavier.

 

[Annabellarose]

My coop is 3'x4' (not including 3 nest boxes; my birds just use it for night roosting and egg laying as they have a large, covered outside run) and (at the moment) I just have 3 Dominiques (but I have had up to 7 hens in my current setup); I use the TSC pelletized (pine) bedding and I use a cheap pair of metal kitchen tongs to pick the poops off the top every morning. I poured a 40 pound bag of pellets ($5.99) into my coop exactly 2 weeks shy of a year ago and my coop still smells ONLY of fresh made furniture.

 

[-Flash-]

My coop floor bedding only needs changing 2x per year. I use a "poop hammock" under the roosts, so I just have to pull that out and hose it off once a week. There's virtually no poop on the coop floor because of that. Feed and water are in the run, so no spills.

are 'poop hammocks' good?

 

[Ryguy3684]

are 'poop hammocks' good?

I like mine. It makes cleaning my coop much easier.

 

[Padfoot22]

My coop is 3'x4' (not including 3 nest boxes; my birds just use it for night roosting and egg laying as they have a large, covered outside run) and (at the moment) I just have 3 Dominiques (but I have had up to 7 hens in my current setup); I use the TSC pelletized (pine) bedding and I use a cheap pair of metal kitchen tongs to pick the poops off the top every morning. I poured a 40 pound bag of pellets ($5.99) into my coop exactly 2 weeks shy of a year ago and my coop still smells ONLY of fresh made furniture.

When you had 7 hens, did you use a regular shovel and did you have to replace the pellets more often? I have 9 birds now and seriously considering using these. Been using litter method with straw for years but had less birds until recently.

 

[jspeese]

My coop is 8 x 8 with an attached 320 sq ft run with a top. At the moment I have 14 hens. I built a droppings pit-type roost, which works quite well and is easy to clean out through a trap door on the outside. I rigged a tarp over the nesting boxes that I can simply lower at night to keep hens from nesting and defecating in them and on them. Things usually stay pretty clean inside the coop, although we've been experiencing a prolonged period of miserable rainy weather, so I've had to do a little bit of spot cleaning. I clean the entire coop thoroughly about twice a year. I do limited free-ranging (hawks), which helps some in keeping the run clean. Fortunately it stays dry because it's on a slight slope. I also rake the run occasionally. On a daily basis, I guess I spend about 5-10 minutes cleaning the coop (scraping the poop off the roost, picking up any poop in the bedding, etc.). I clean out the droppings pit every day or every other day, so that the mess doesn't build up and smell. If I do it everyday, it's less than a shovel full.