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

[Ashland Oregon]

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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!)

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!)

Basically, I clean mine like my house: when company’s coming, or if I just can’t stand the mess anymore.
Over Tgiving weekend a few years back, my kids and I threw it all together. It’s nice, really nice. Anyway the coop is elevated w a never-used bath area directly below. For the bottom of the coop, we lined it w corrugated plastic political field signs. Works great.
I used to put lots of straw in there for warmth and such, but they never hung out in the straw, preferring their roosts near the rooftop, and the straw got to be too much to handle. The slick plastic field sign is easy to clean and the poop dries immediately. It’s weird. Plus those signs have half-lives: they last forever. I’ve never seen a fly in there, whereas they’re everywhere else the hens do their duty.
I scrape my coop out, using a rake, straight into a plastic garbage can. That can then gets filled w water and six weeks later I have chicken-poop tea for my yard and garden.Roses and peonies esp love chicken-poop tea

 

[chickencoop57]

I clean mine about once a month. It's only a 4'x8' and it's deep in pine shavings. However, every other day or so, I'll go in and toss the shavings.

 

[Mariannepeeps]

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.

Would you mind posting a few pics of your coop? Inside pics and outside pics? Pleeeease??

 

[Rockdale Chick]

I clean the coop once a day as I use sand it's just about 5 minutes. Then I clean the run which is also sand in the morning and later in the afternoon when the girls are let out to free range in the yard for about 2 hours. With sand I just use a cat litter scoop. Easy, peasy. I have 7 hens, no rooster at the moment.

 

[Imse]

I clean the poop boards 1-3 times a week, depending on the temperature. The shavings on the floor are cleaned out in the spring when the flock moves out in their summer coop. We use pine shavings in the winter and starts with 10 cm(4 inches) and refill a time or two during winter. We also take the feathers when it is too much of it...

Using a poop board saves the litter on the floor , so you get less smell and less waste. The poop from the poop board goes right in the compost, summer and winter.


And after reading this thread, I will try sand on the poop board, making it even more easy to clean, using an old cat litter scoop .

 

[Charlie Chicken]

Interesting to read about all the work most people go through in cleaning their coops. I only clean mine once per year. Dirt floor and deep litter. Pine shavings and/or raked leaves are added occasionally as needed. I feed treats & scratch on the floor and the chickens take care of stirring up the deep litter.

 

[Padfoot22]

Every 3 months I remove all straw, brush/sweep out all stuck on stuff and blow out last dust/dirt with a leaf blower. Sometimes I get inferior (dried out) straw and have to do it sooner. I usually have 3-6 chickens at a time.

 

[Leeab]

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!)

 

[Leeab]

Every wk. it’s a lot but I sell my eggs. You can go in anytime of yrs and see clean coops.
I have big coop holds 50 chickens and a med coop holds 25 30. Birds. They go in what one they want. Two brooders. One for pulleys one for chicks.

 

[Citytransplant]

I have 5 hens. Clean poop boards every other day or so. It will be more often when the weather warms up. Deep litter with wood chips and just cleaned out after a year. It really didn't need it as it was dry and odor free, I just wanted to put the used litter in the composting bin. My goal is to not have smells or the much hated flies in the hen house. Last year (the first year of trying it this way) worked very well.