We made our "poo trays" yesterday. My husband will be putting them up today after church. I did some water based painting inside the coop. Do chickens do oK with painted surfaces, do they see color? Anyone know. Thanks again, for all the kind words and I am proud to be a part of this wonderful "Flock".
Hello there and welcome to BYC! So glad you could join our community! Yes, they can see colors. I have found my birds are sensitive to loud colors on certain things. But what ever color you painted your coop walls, they can get used to it over time. I don't use poop trays but lots of members here do and say they are just great! Makes for easy clean up. Make yourself at home here and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Welcome to our flock!
Hi, nice to meet you. Welcome to the BYC flock. Some people like to use sand on the poop trays - helps dry it out and keep the odor down.
Hello and Welcome To BYC! Some nice links to chicken vision http://mikethechickenvet.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/chicken-vision/ and http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/274/1621/1941.full and http://jeb.biologists.org/content/202/21/2951.full.pdf
Welcome! I'm another of those poop deck users and I love it. We use Sweet PDZ on ours. Ken fashioned a scooper out of 1/4 hardware cloth...it's about 8 inches long, just rolled into a semi-circle at the business end and rolled tighter into a handle at the other. Then we used electrical tape to form a handle. Just a few minutes cleaning the poop deck in the morning and I'm done. If the litter seems to be getting a little compacted I toss some scratch in and the girls aerate it for me. Coop is so easy to do that when Ken and I travel out of town, as we do frequently, my 8 year old granddaughter and my 9 year old grandson (cousins, not brother and sister) can keep it just as nice as I would. Bought each of them rubber boots and when they get here they change into their coop shoes, gather eggs, clean the poop deck, and they're done. Then they change back into their coop shoes, put the eggs in the basket on the counter, wash up and go to their respective homes. (Katie lives across the street and Evan lives 2 blocks down.) I don't think they could do the "chicken chores" if the process was more involved than that!
Thanks so much for the advise. I hope they like yellow. As soon as weather cools off, we are going to get their enclosed protected run done. My husband is working on electric chicken door he made with a rotisserie motor. I will also send a picture. Not sure how to do it, just learning. We should have it done within a month. What kind of chickens do you have and which ones are best layers?