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

[DucksNchickenss]

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.

I've never thought of putting a camera in a chicken coop! That's such a great idea!!

 

[TheresaV]

I clean out the straw under the roost every 1 to 2 months. After cleaning out the straw, I pull some straw from other areas to underneath the roost and add fresh straw wherever it's getting thin. I use a pitchfork to turn the straw under the perch to cover up the chicken manure every day or two. I add more straw on top as needed.

I also keep a putty knife in the chicken house and every day I use it to scrape the manure off of the roost.

The manure mostly only accumulates under the roost so I haven't ever had to change out all the straw. This is with 8 chickens who are now 1 year old. I have 16 chicks coming along- cleaning may be more of a chore when they get bigger.

 

[Acre4Me]

We clean as needed. We toss the bedding under the roosts so that it can get loaded with poop, before putting into compost. No poop boards, so all bedding gets pooped on.

if it smells strong/bad, then out it goes. Coop is well ventilated.

winter is the worst. Frozen bedding and poop, so we will add clean bedding on top as we cannot remove the frozen poop/bedding brick. First big thaw and coop gets a clean out.

we do wear a respirator when cleaning it out -too dusty for the lungs.

if we see lice on the chickens, then the coop gets very thoroughly cleaned, sprayed with permethrin heavily, new bedding added, and each chicken gets thoroughly sprayed and then put in the clean/treated coop so we know that all get treated. So, lice ( or mites) are the one thing that will cause us to clean out the coop before we normally would.

 

[Mamatomany123]

I live where summers are 120+ and we snow in winter. Nice weather isnt very long so poop boards it is scoop real fast then get my but inside. Change the entire bedding 2x a year, maybe.

 

[Peggy O]

When I was new to chickens I used to shovel the entire thing out every week and replace it with fresh shavings. That started to get really expensive! Now I scoop out the poop as needed. If there is a broken egg, I clean the whole thing out. basically I clean it when it needs to be cleaned. If people are coming over for a family party or something I want to look extra nice, I know they're going to go look at the chickens. I do not clean as often as I used to. Every spring I do a thorough clean out. Take out everything, hose out, and start fresh. For anyone with a weird shaped coop like mine (mine is two rooms, I bought a small one and we put a huge addition on it 7 years ago) I use a squeegee that I got in the dollar aisle at Rite Aid to get the shavings out of the corners and weird little spots, super helpful! A regular old plastic dollar squeegee. Best tool ever for my setup.

 

[Kazzandra]

Still failing to understand all the micromanagement.

I've kept chickens 15 years this way and have only once had a contagious sickness (a chicken cold) and on average lose a chicken (usually age 6 and up) to an illness every 2-3 years or so (I usually keep around 20 at a time, with many reaching age 12). All I do is a sprinkle some more shavings or straw every week and a once a year compost removal so we don't start bumping our head on the ceiling from all the increased composted shavings underfeet. Part of my success with this method might be our climate (heavy humidity, cool) but surprised I haven't seen other people in my climes posting they do the same.

That's it. That's all. I can't believe some people have to clean their runs too Wow, what a time sink! And I can take pictures of my runs and coop floor-- they are rather clean. I was just out there sitting in the shavings in my coop and didn't get any unpleasant surprises doing so. Dirt floors work wonders, as long as you have really good hardware cloth dug in and bent in around the edges of the coop to prevent digging critters. Would never go back to a floored coop again, where too much composting=rotting floorboards and we actually had a skunk move in under the coop.

 

[Peggy O]

Still failing to understand all the micromanagement.

I've kept chickens 15 years this way and have only once had a contagious sickness (a chicken cold) and on average lose a chicken (usually age 6 and up) to an illness every 2-3 years or so (I usually keep around 20 at a time, with many reaching age 12). All I do is a sprinkle some more shavings or straw every week and a once a year compost removal so we don't start bumping our head on the ceiling from all the increased composted shavings underfeet. Part of my success with this method might be our climate (heavy humidity, cool) but surprised I haven't seen other people in my climes posting they do the same.

That's it. That's all. I can't believe some people have to clean their runs too Wow, what a time sink! And I can take pictures of my runs and coop floor-- they are rather clean. I was just out there sitting in the shavings in my coop and didn't get any unpleasant surprises doing so. Dirt floors work wonders, as long as you have really good hardware cloth dug in and bent in around the edges of the coop to prevent digging critters. Would never go back to a floored coop again, where too much composting=rotting floorboards and we actually had a skunk move in under the coop.

My run floor gets so high that I can't open the door to the inner under house, where I add newbies that are still smallish. It's kind of a hard set up to explain, the accumulation of doodoo and stuff (which is good, it keeps it higher, drains well in the spring) gets TOO high. I actually go in there with a shovel and mix it once in awhile, every few years. Then take a layer off and fill chipmunk and vole holes in the yard. Its been seven years, and I throw a whole bale of hay in there every winter to give them something to scratch around in. It adds up over time.

 

[3KillerBs]

Still failing to understand all the micromanagement.

Me neither.

"Only" 5, 10, or 15 minutes a day is 2.5, 5, or 7.5 hours a month.

I actually timed myself when writing my deep bedding article and found that it takes 5-15 minutes to add a new layer of bedding every 2 weeks (depending on if I'm opening the bag of shavings or raking up pine straw in the yard), then 1 hour every 6-12 weeks for the clean-out.

 

[janiedoe]

I clean my coop twice a year - once in the spring, and once in the fall. That includes everything - deep clean to take all the bedding out, wiping dust off of surfaces, etc. I don't have poop boards and don't do in-between cleanings. I do deep bedding (dry) with pine shavings and all I do between the biennial cleanings is to occasionally stir it up and sprinkle fresh shavings and PDZ on top when it starts looking poopy, maybe 5 times in half a year. It stays dry and doesn't smell. My roosts are far from the wall so there's no poop to be cleaned off the walls. For some reason my chickens have never perched on top of the besting box, so I haven't had to clean that. It's a very easy setup and I love it!

This is what it looks like soon after the fall deep clean:
View attachment 2585172

This is what the floor looks like currently, about 6 months after the last cleaning. Not too bad. Some poop is visible, but it's all dry and doesn't smell, so I don't care.
View attachment 2585173

Adorable coop! Those gals look comfy!

 

[aart]

And I can take pictures of my runs and coop floor-- they are rather clean.

That would be great @Kazzandra .
Include dimensions and how many birds you have.
Your climate may well have some affect on your success.