Painting the floor

[Rise722]

I just want to hear pros and cons about painting a plywood floor in the chicken coop vs. linoleum, Blackjack, etc.

 

[Battlepants]

Chickens have very dry droppings compared to other creatures, so an unpainted floor is just fine as long as they aren't dumping their water onto it over and over. Of my two coops, I have unpainted plywood floor in one coop (inherited with the house, been fine for the year I've been here, seems to have been here for some time prior) and a dirt floor in my other coop.

Pros and cons pretty much all end up being resistance to rot/water vs price.

You could put in tiles and that will surely increase the lifespan of your floor but I'm not sure I would spring for the extra cost here. If you can find someone on craigslist that's looking to offload some excess tiles either cheap or free, I'd say go for it.

 

[3KillerBs]

I only have one coop with a floor and I didn't bother -- I use Deep Bedding to maintain a very dry environment.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/using-deep-bedding-in-a-small-coop.76343/

 

[SourRoses]

It depends how deep you want your bedding.
We have two big coops, one a former horse stall with deep sand / no floor.
The other a shed with aged wooden slat floor that isn't built for depth (doorway, etc.). With only a few inches of shavings it is very hard to scrape clean the droppings that make it through and mash into the floor.
I far prefer maintaining the stall with the sand, a little raking of the big stuff and everything tiny falls down deep to get dried out and disappear forever. But that may also be due to the natural sand / limestone we have, it seems not everyone has the same experience.
If I were building a coop with a floor right now, I would make it deep and use linoleum so that a real clean is possible for those times you really need to sanitize (like now for me as we are changing flocks around).

 

[perkolator]

Have had a 20+yr old coop with unpainted OSB floor and now a coop with painted floor. Both setups were fine with deep bedding (8"+ deep) as the floor never really got wet by anything. Even when I hosed down and scrubbed the bare wood coop it was never a problem. It's more constant moisture that kills wood.

If you have a leaky roof, waterers inside, high humidity etc. that will maintain a certain level of moisture on the wood surface so it never dries out, then your wood is obviously more susceptible to rotting and a solid surface is a good idea - linoleum, blackjack, redguard, enamel paint, perhaps even peel stick tiles, etc.