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

[Ponypoor]

I clean every morning, I use roosting ledges not rails, so my chooks sleep on a ledge that is about a foot deep and runs the length of the Hen House.

I scrape off any poops and save the good bedding which is softwood shavings.

The flooring is also shavings and I pick any poops there also. I have three Hen Houses on the go and it takes me about 15 min to do them all.

It’s part of my morning routine for cleaning horse stalls, everyone gets poops picked and fresh bedding.

There are nestboxes under the ledge which is about 30” high - no bending over for me - super easy to clean. And my chooks have been happier with the ledges, no squabbling and fighting for spots like on the rails. Of course they love to all snuggle together at the one end

 

[sabredog]

View attachment 2583103​

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!)

I have old 3 inch round fence post I cut into 40 inch lengths 4 of them put a 2x4 on both ends spacing the post about 16 inches apart and hung them with chain from the ceiling about 26 inches off the ground made a great roosting spot. The 20 birds I have love them when it's cold out they huddle together within the first 3. When it's warm they space themselves apart (I added a couple 2 footers to the end) about 95% of the coop poop is under these roost. I use horse pellets ( saw dust pressed in little tubes) they absorb the water and the smell and keep the coop fresh. I cover with some shavings and sprinkle in some healthy coop.. I usually only have to clean this area maybe 1 time a month and it's so easy getting under with a rake with it suspended from the ceiling. The rest of the coop I spot hit. My nesting boxes are a 3 foot by 7 foot extension off the back that is like a 2ndary room. There is minimal droppings back there and the roosters usually stay out of that section of the coop. They have a 10 x 26 foot run off the side and have been outside running around in 5 degree weather with almost 2 feet of snow in the run. I yell at them to get inside so they don't freeze to death. Most of my coop is solar ( fans, lights , nesting heater) other then the heater on the water pail. That will be solar power this spring/summer as well. Plus heated plant grow pads will go into nesting boxes and also run on solar. I am looking at a small 80 sq ft expansion for the front mostly food and water hut and food/water etc storage and protection for my solar equipment. Although I have plans for the following year of building into the hillside and having a drop floor under the roost that can be swept or washed right down into the compost pile making cleaning even easier with a 42x16 foot expansion run

 

[nancypo]

I clean every morning, I use roosting ledges not rails, so my chooks sleep on a ledge that is about a foot deep and runs the length of the Hen House.

I scrape off any poops and save the good bedding which is softwood shavings.

The flooring is also shavings and I pick any poops there also. I have three Hen Houses on the go and it takes me about 15 min to do them all.

It’s part of my morning routine for cleaning horse stalls, everyone gets poops picked and fresh bedding.

View attachment 3992223
There are nestboxes under the ledge which is about 30” high - no bending over for me - super easy to clean. And my chooks have been happier with the ledges, no squabbling and fighting for spots like on the rails. Of course they love to all snuggle together at the one end

 

[nancypo]

We use the deep litter method and only usually have about three hens at a time since we have an urban Coop. We empty the Coop out completely every 3 months and I clean their top resting shelf perch every few days as needed. I watched The Coop more in the summer when the weather's hotter and clean off their top roosting area. Our coop is probably larger than a lot of people's. Our coop is about 10 or 12 ft long 4 ft wide that's 7 ft high at the pitch. We have lots of ventilation both summer Less in the winter but there's never any odor. We have about four to five inches of pine shavings the bottom of the winter about 3 to 4 inches in the summer, we top dress as needed. Since we live in a drier climate in Idaho the pine shavings work great! We've been using that for almost 15 years with very great success

 

[Dhkoenig]

I clean out the coop once a year. Whether it needs it or not!
The poop boards are cleaned every morning. The floor of my coop gets very little poop in the bedding as the birds go out to the run as soon as they come off the roost and wait there for me to release them.
When winter really bears down, they will spend more time hunkered down in the bedding of the coop.View attachment 2583454
I'll be doing a cleaning next month. It'll get hit with a spray down of Elector PSP when I've emptied it and before I bed it down.

wow very beautiful diggs!!!

 

[mrjvi]

Twice a year for me. I add bedding more often so it decomposes some and actually helps heat a little for our cold winters. The litter , when it is cleaned out, becomes compose for our garden.

 

[ChookaPete]

My chookies roost on a thick tree branch perch I set up across the coop (inside a fenced off corner of my shed), high above the floor. They climb and fly up to it by a ladder I made out of branches. When they roost on the perch, their poop falls straight down to the straw on the floor. At the moment it dries out quickly, so doesn't smell.

Any poop that catches on the perch gets scraped off to the floor about once a week or so. There isn't much as most of it falls straight down.

I muck out the coop floor every couple of months or so - whenever the manure builds up to a noticeable pile on the straw. I replace the straw with leaves I have raked up and a bit of straw I've bought.
I use the mucked straw as compost.


Here's Chamomile heading to bed early. I'll post more coop pics soon.

 

[AinaWGSD]

I voted twice a year because that's what we did with the coop out at the farm. Complete clean out and replacement of shavings in the spring and again in the fall. We've had the garage coop here in town since June and haven't felt the need to replace the bedding yet (although I do have a bag of pine shavings i keep thinking we should probably add to it) but I also have a poop board under the roost that gets scooped daily whereas the coop at the farm just had deep litter.

 

[Caitboyce]

View attachment 2583103​

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!)

I only have 2 hens and I do a regular clean (add fresh shavings, clean water and good sources, etc) every week and a deep cleaning (scrubbing, removing all nesting materials, power washing) 2x per year. Sanitation is the key word and I take extreme precautions and here’s why:

7 years ago I had 5 hens that I adored. Over a period of a year I started to get very sick. And when I say sick, I mean that I couldn’t walk 25’ from my bed to my bathroom without resting. My oxygen SAT’s went from 99% to 86% and I couldn’t breathe. After visits to a pulmonologist and much testing the results came back - I had aspergillosis and it was spreading. The chickens went to live in a new home, my coop was removed and the area was bleached and then ground-burned. It took 2 years to get back to normal, although I still have an inhaler.

I finally have hens again - and when the coop is cleaned I wear a 1-piece Tyvek suit ($3.00 Home Depot), surgical gloves, hair cover and a mask.

So what I’m saying is that Asper is prevalent in coops because of feces and dust. And it can kill you. Maintaining a sanitary coop while protecting yourself, saves you and the chickens. FYI birds who contract Asper don’t survive it…

 

[TLynne1]

I have old 3 inch round fence post I cut into 40 inch lengths 4 of them put a 2x4 on both ends spacing the post about 16 inches apart and hung them with chain from the ceiling about 26 inches off the ground made a great roosting spot. The 20 birds I have love them when it's cold out they huddle together within the first 3. When it's warm they space themselves apart (I added a couple 2 footers to the end) about 95% of the coop poop is under these roost. I use horse pellets ( saw dust pressed in little tubes) they absorb the water and the smell and keep the coop fresh. I cover with some shavings and sprinkle in some healthy coop.. I usually only have to clean this area maybe 1 time a month and it's so easy getting under with a rake with it suspended from the ceiling. The rest of the coop I spot hit. My nesting boxes are a 3 foot by 7 foot extension off the back that is like a 2ndary room. There is minimal droppings back there and the roosters usually stay out of that section of the coop. They have a 10 x 26 foot run off the side and have been outside running around in 5 degree weather with almost 2 feet of snow in the run. I yell at them to get inside so they don't freeze to death. Most of my coop is solar ( fans, lights , nesting heater) other then the heater on the water pail. That will be solar power this spring/summer as well. Plus heated plant grow pads will go into nesting boxes and also run on solar. I am looking at a small 80 sq ft expansion for the front mostly food and water hut and food/water etc storage and protection for my solar equipment. Although I have plans for the following year of building into the hillside and having a drop floor under the roost that can be swept or washed right down into the compost pile making cleaning even easier with a 42x16 foot expansion run

I clean every evening. I use an ice scraper to loosen the poop, then al Broom and dust pan to clear it out. Then every other weekend I take everything out, power wash the floor and inside the smaller coop where they sleep and add fresh Pine Shavings and Lime.