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

[old chickady]

Tell me about the roost boards. So you put new ones in each day? What do you use? Do you just chuck them in the garbage? Need to know!!!

The roost has a typical 4 rung high roost made of wood closet pole, but found they prefer a shelf. So... I also have a 1X8 (Trex composite type material) shelf around each wall about 4 1/2 foot high. It is easy to scrap and clean.

 

[Dhkoenig]

Every 6-12 weeks currently -- depending on weather and other factors (article here).

The new Open Air coop may need it less often because I may be able to use Deep Litter instead of Deep Bedding.

I am relatively new - what is deep litter and deep bedding?

 

[WestTNriverrat]

I voted once a month. Really I have never cleaned the whole thing out. I just remove dirty bedding under roost add new and fluff

 

[3KillerBs]

I am relatively new - what is deep litter and deep bedding?

I wrote an article on Using Deep Bedding in a Small Coop.

 

[DEBRA56]

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 clean their sleeping area daily. Out in the run in our

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!)

Where they sleep, daily. Out in the yard where they free range is weekly by either raking it into the pan (like dog poop picking up) or hose it down in Summer.

 

[Dhkoenig]

I wrote an article on Using Deep Bedding in a Small Coop.

Thanks that was really great! You answered all of the questions I had in my mind. Sadly for us, we don't have enough ventilation so I really have to pick out the poop each and every day and dig around to make sure I don't miss any. I don't mind doing it but if I switched to Deep Bedding (which sounds actually so nice) I would have to really build another coop and we just finished this one which we got from a blueprint and it is really awesome but not any room for enough ventilation. So we only have two vents on the back wall, open soffets that are only like 1-2" and 12 one inch holes in the gable. We do have two big windows but those are closed in the winter. Too much exposure. So...I guess until I convince my husband to put one big vent in the back where the two small ones are...I have to do it the OCD way LOL. Thanks again for the article. I am going to file it away for when that day comes

 

[nancypo]

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!)

We use the deep litter method in Boise Idaho where it's very dry. We clean out the entire Coop 4 times per year. When the weather is warmer and we clean out the coop completely I also use diameter tacious Earth sprinkled in under the pine shavings. Keeps the bugs down. I clean off the upper roosting board every few days in the warmer weather and about once a week or so in the cold weather. We have an adjustable sunroom that we have set up in the winter it gives the chickens extra room and that has just the garden soil underneath. All of our chickens are extremely healthy, great eggs! You can see our Coop design at my blog little Homestead in Boise

 

[StarChicken]

I clean mine when it needs it.

The upside of coop cleaning is that I have lots of lovely composted chicken fertilizer for my daughter's and my co-op garden!

 

[Ascholten]

I have 4 birds, it's not that big of a deal to shovel poop every morning. It takes not even 5 minutes, besides im out there feeding them, checking their water etc anyways. Plus It goes into a 5 gallon pail that when full gets thrown in and mixed with the compost so it's all good. This also gives me time to look at the poops, see if there are health issues I need to worry about etc.

Aaron

 

[Karen K]

I am in the process of converting to sand in both their run and in the coop-house & nesting boxes. I clean the coop-house every morning when I lift them out their backdoor. At this time I'm also checking their crop and making sure they are healthy. It also gets them used to being handled by doing this every day. Then I clean out the coop house. I have two coop-houses that look like attached townhouses. Hardware screening is dividing the two houses and their respective runs. One has sand in the run and coop-house, the other has sand just in the run. I have pellet bedding in that coop-house as I haven't finished using it up. It will eventually be changed over to sand as well. Cleaning the coop-house everyday allows me to check their poop to make sure everything is normal.
My chickens free-range during the day, so the run only needs to be cleaned out when the weather is so bad they don't want to roam in the yard, so every few weeks or so.