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

[Farmgirl1878]

Please tell me what kind of sand? I'm so confused. I have read to use the sand used in kids sandboxes, I've read no, not that kind. Also, is it a good insulator. I am on Long Island in NY?

I live in waaaaaaaaay-Southern Ohio where the humidity level is never below forty-five percent. We get a LOT of rain, snow, and dense fog, so it’s always wet. And we have sand in the coop and covered run. We buy ours by the 14-ton dumptruck load from the local quarry. It’s natural, washed, coarse grain, river sand. You’ll want to look for coarse grain sand with lots of different sizes. It should look like this:

As long as it’s in the shade, it stays cool in the summer. In the winter, it’s the same temp as the ground, except in the coop where it feels a bit warmer. I use a long handled wok skimmer to scoop poop. Takes me about ten minutes, twice a day, to keep up with twelve big poopers.

 

[Mrskrieg77357]

Whenever it needs it really! Maybe one a month ?? I have a pretty large coop. I use nesting box liners that I get from Amazon. They are really nice and last a couple months so I just change out the pads when they get all poopy and scrap their roosting bars and shovel the poop from the coop floor.

 

[CatWhisperer]

I do a total clean out spring and fall. Poop boards get scooped and roosts scraped daily. My birds free range so coops and runs don’t get very dirty.

 

[LabMomma]

I'm doing the deep litter method, so I clean out my coop twice a year. I do it in the spring and in the fall

 

[blackacres]

I voted every day because I clean the poop trays daily. But a full coop clean happens as needed, which seems to be about every 3 months. I’m using deep litter for Winter so currently, I clean the poop trays, the rake the litter and top it off as needed.

 

[blackacres]

I have sand so I scoop it every morning. Stays nice and clean

I’ve been thinking of switching to sand but worried about losing the warmth factor from the pine shavings. I live in KS. Thoughts?

 

[Chicken poppy]

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It's not a pleasant part of keeping chickens, but it's one we must all deal with regardless: poop. How often do you clean your coop out? Don't include pens in your answer, just your coop or coops. Do you find it easy or difficult to clean them out? What changes to your coop design or technique would you make to improve the process?

(Check out more Official BYC Polls HERE!)

Every day exactly! Never miss it.

 

[Bcoz18]

I normally clean mine weekly, in thr cold/winter months I don't clean it at all so December/January I don't clean it at all.

 

[TamaNicole]

Thank you all for the input. As I am redaing through this I now have morw questions. Currently I am spot cleaning the makeshift coop I am using until the permanent one is finished. Then i change out the bedding weekly.

This brought me to my question of deep litter vs deep bedding. I will now have to do more research as I am in South Florida and trying to decide if the new coop will have a floor or just the sandy ground.

 

[3KillerBs]

This brought me to my question of deep litter vs deep bedding.

Welcome to BYC.

This is my article on Deep Bedding: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/using-deep-bedding-in-a-small-coop.76343/