PLEASE post your poop board pics....

[ksct]

We have to reconfigure our coop layout as soon as the weather stays steady enough to keep the birds out all day.... (ours are WAY too nosey... they knock on the chicken door when we close them out

)
Anyway.... here's a picture of our layout right now.....

it's not a great picture because you can't see the floor etc....
but we're finding that the birds roost on the ladder which is fine, but i think some of them 'pick on' a few of them becuase we have a few that are 'forced' to roost on the lower 'steps' of the ladder and they get poo'd on...... they have a LARGE amount of space to roost up high...... however, they are pooing so much in the corner by the ladder etc that they don't like to hang out on the ground because of the poo..... i'd like to make a poop board and i'm not 100% sure how to go about it.....
how far below the roos should the board be? what is the best material to use for it? wood and then scoop it out every few days? I'd like to save a little $ too because I feel like we're going through so many wood chips....

please post pics. and any advice etc would be great help. thanks!

 

[AnnainMD]

Here are a couple of other threads that pop up if you search for "poop board" or "poop tray" or better "droppings board".

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=321511

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=31215

We actually plan to have a poop tray/droppings tray. It'll have edges and I'll fill it with Stall-Dri and scoop out the poop every few days (like you do for cats). The stall-dri will dehydrate the poop very nicely and they'll be hard little lumps, easy to scoop. I personally can't stand seeing smeared poop on the tray, because you know some of it's going to be fresh

 

[ksct]

thank you.... whenever I search anything I always get 100 things, just none that pertain to my search.

Anyone else have any pics?

 

[ChixMama]

Here's a look at my poop board & roost on the right side of the door:

I pored over coop designs on this board and came up with this due to the small size of my coop. The poop board rests on support boards that run the length of the coop and the poop board can be moved forward/back for cleaning purposes. In the next pic it is moved toward the window:

I leave it back towards the door so they won't hop on top of the waterer (which they did one time & made a mess) For really deep cleaning it can be removed all together. The roost board is made of 2x4 and sits on top of the poop board, but can be removed for cleaning as well. So far it's working out great. I just scoop it up with plastic bag (one the newspaper comes in) and toss the girls' deposits

into the compost bin. If you want to see more detail you can look at my page, but I'll warn you there are a lot of pictures.

 

[ksct]

I love the pics! I love the ideas..... Our coop is configured oddly.... so i'm trying to find the best way to make it. I'm concerned they'll try to roost in it or lay eggs in it. So i wanted to see pics to find out how low they are from the roost. Plus i'm hoping when for example we get ice storms etc, and they have to stay inside they'll have more room to walk around.

Thanks again for the ideas. I love the idea of being able to move it!
keep the pictures coming.

 

[teach1rusl]

And I would get rid of the ladder and just have a chicken plank or very narrow chicken ladder for them to climb to get to the main roost. That way nobody is above anyone else...all fair and no poopy heads/backs...lol.

 

[kickinchicken]

teach1rusl-nice roost/poop board set up. I almost went with the "ladder" roost, but your design just makes things so much easier to clean. Once this rain lets up I can finally finish my coop and get my flock out the door!

 

[ksct]

teach1rusl - your 'ladder' looks very steep.... do they climb up that no problem? We were already figuring we'd have to get rid of the ladder. We were so happy with it originally.... Chickens have different logic than us people...

I see your poopd board isn't covered with shavings or anything....

Does anyone know what is better? I realize with nothing covering the board... i'll have to do some scraping... but i'm afraid to put shavings on it because they may sit in it?

Thanks all for your help. I'm really hoping this will be the last 'remodel' we have to do on this 'finished' coop. We've already put an addition on it. lol

 

[newchicksnducks]

Our droppings board is about 32" off the coop floor. The bottom roost we have since raised a little to make the girls a little more even. It is probably 8" up from the droppings board. The next roost is about 12" higher and 14" or so away from the lower roost, and 14" away from the wall. This allows the hens to sit and not poop on each other. We do not use litter on the droppings board, just scrape the wood. We made it out of OSB board, which I probably will not use next time I have to replace it. We did paint it with glossy paint, but in the winter when the poop freezes on the board, it will sometimes splinter when scraping Ideally I would love to have the droppings board made of a laminate surface, as I think that would clean the easiest, but will probably just use porch painted plywood next time. Although this board is a year old already, and will probably be good for a couple of more years...not bad for left over material use

 

[fiddlebanshee]

Thanks for the heads up about the osb, I hadn't thought about that. I found an old countertop for free on Craigslist that is laminated (like formica) and plan to use that for one of the droppings boards. It's just heavy like hell, so you can't easily take it out for cleaning, it probably weighs close to 25 lbs.

I know also that other people use drip pans or other containers on top of the droppings board to catch the poo for easy cleaning. That might be a solution to your osb problem. I think I'll try that on the counter top so that I don't have to handle the heavy board all that much, just take it out for deep cleaning once in a while