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

[Three Stents]

My coop and run are small enough that I remove the poop everyday. Then sprinkle a little PDZ on the poop "shelf" and over the sand/pine shavings that are on the floor.

 

[BonnieBlue]

I checked "daily". But the last few days, it has been twice a day. I have been cleaning the poop board (that has sand on it) in the mornings with a kitty litter scoop to clean up their nightly messes. In the late afternoon before they roost for the night, I use a sieve shovel to spot clean the floor of the coop (also sand). It only takes me a couple of minutes longer, total time spent, and not as long in the mornings. I was doing it that way because it was cold out and I just wanted to get inside. But then I realized that the coop just seems cleaner odor wise in the mornings by not having their poop on the floor (where they hang out a lot during the day) overnight. I figure it's a win for everyone for only a couple of more minutes a day.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

I clean it nearly every day. It's at waist height and has big doors. I designed it that way so it would be easy to clean.

I complain about the desert a lot but one thing that's good about this environment is that it's so incredibly dry that chicken poop dries out almost immediately. The coop has pine shavings and desert sand and it's easy to rake it and remove any poop, then I toss in a few handfuls of fresh shavings. Dry poop means fewer smells and flies, too.

The pens are easy to clean for the same reason. The poop dries out almost instantly and the chickens scratch in the dirt and break up the poop and it disappears into the hard dirt. There's not a lot to rake out although I rake the pens almost every day anyway, mostly to clean up feathers and feed pellets and whatever pine shavings fall out of the nest boxes. The pens look very nice when they're clean with even rake lines in the dirt. I know the chickens don't notice but I like it.