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

[venymae]

I do spring and fall complete clean out, so twice a year with the deep litter method. HOWEVER, i do give the litter a light stir every once in a while and if I ever notice a poop pile under the roosts I scoop it out (it's not super often). My coop doesn't smell or have flies. I live in town and want it fresh and fabulous.

 

[BonnieBlue]

I did shavings for a couple of months while it was cold (cold being a relative term). I absolutely hated it. I put sand back in a couple of weeks ago, and it is so easy to scoop out the poop each morning after I let the girls out. 5 to 10 minutes and it is cleaned well. Granted, it is only a 4x4 coop, and since it is raised, I just lean over and into it. But a grain scoop and a garden sieve gets all of the poop quickly. A bit of stall fresh (pdz) is mixed into the sand, and there is no smell.

The great thing is we have many options and can tailor our coops and cleaning routines to what fits us and our chickens.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

Finally a nice stretch of weather in Connecticut. I just removed every single thing from the run, removed all the tarp wrapping the coop, hopefully for the last time this season....raked, inspected, swept.... its so refreshing. The chickens are indifferent b/c of the tarp removal and visual protection from monsters. I dont add anything to the run except dry, organic, material. Yesterday rained all day long and theres nothing worse than a super wet run. Run will be 3 years old this May and I have fortunately never had to add anything for a robust ecosystem. Lots of raking and turning the material, adding dried leaves and hay/wood chips. Good luck! Welcome spring!!

 

[Scooter1A]

Warm in Illinois today so I picked mine clean. Only thing was under he roost.....yea!!

 

[BiggDeal]

Tricky question . I scoop my poop board every day when collecting eggs ( a few times let it go two days …but I have a covered poop board with linoleum and I put sweet PDZ in it no smell and when I have to add new sweet I clean board if it needs it but it really hasn’t yet …. But I did deep clean once already but my coop is new we just built it finished end of Nov only it really didn’t need it we put wood look linoleum on walls and floor as well as poop board and no poop on floor with poop boards and they are cleaned most every day takes five minutes like cleaning my cats litter box … use scoop and put in compost when done …. Deep clean a few times a year roost bars and poop board and walls etc.
Only thing that gets messy is ramp up to roosting bars ( I have a few silkies and they don’t fly) but working in a solution for that too come warmer weather !

 

[JGreenwell]

I clean my 4 coops early each morning. What makes easy cleaning is sand. Simply scoop the poop and put it in a bucket and dispose of it. Done.
Other than building coops to withstand strong storms including cat 1 hurricanes, ease of cleaning coops was a priority. It takes me about 30 minutes to clean out coops each morning.

What kind of sand do you use?

 

[JLB]

I have a 5'X4' raised henhouse for my 4 hens and I clean out the droppings from the night before on hardware area of the floor poop daily. The floor is half hardware cloth (Just under their roosting bar/ the other half is wood). I have a drawer that fits into a slide a few inches underneath the hardware cloth floor that I pull out to dump in compost about once a month. I use a combo of wood shavings and some flat sheets of newspaper to catch the droppings that fall onto the hware cloth floor under the roosting bars.
I do a quick pass in their large run ( a third dirt, the rest pavers) a few times a day to get the poop that accumulates there.
They freerange in our large, yard mostly during the day, so not that much poop accumulates in their covered run. They like to hang out on the back porch of my cottage studio, so I clean the deck of poop there about twice a day. I just keep a long handled poop scooper handy. Part of the routine and doesn't take that long.

 

[dawg53]

What kind of sand do you use?

Yellow sand out of a sandpit. I used white sand once but it stuck to everything, never bought it again.

 

[Momma-Hen-Misti]

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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!)

 

[Momma-Hen-Misti]

I clean the roosts & droppings box daily. I change the shavings on the coop floor in late spring, early summer. That's when I do a deep clean. I wipe & mop the surfaces & linoleum floors.