poop board

[greenriver]

Thanks for the pics, superchemicalgirl>

 

[henney penny]

Have one under each roost.I keep sand in it and scoop it everyday with a kitty litter scoop one of the big ones.I was using sweet pdz but got to expensive,sand works just as good

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I scrape it daily and it goes into a compost pile then into the garden in the fall. In winter here the poop freezes solid on the board and I bought a metal scraper from Home Depot which works great. I think it's used for spackling or something, but it's hardcore. I broke way too many plastic ones before on frozen poops.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I haven't done it yet but I'm contemplating a sheet of polyethylene. I thought the poop might be easier to get off.

 

[donna8424]

All this makes me want to build a new coop.

I wonder what DH would thing of that idea?

 

[simplynewt]

I use a 1" x 10" board stratigically placed under the roost so that it catches the poo in either way the roost. Most of the time it works and when they miss, the shavings catch it and is little clean up. I like the wood as it absorbs some of the liquid in the poo (some of it). I would think that using the poly, it would take awhile for the poo to dry up but would be easier to mange and clean.

 

[greenriver]

Quote:
The daily scraping is what I want to avoid. I want my coop maintenance at a minimum. My plan is to block off underneath the roost so it can be cleaned from a door outside the coop. I am thinking cleanout monthly at most using a thin layer of litter and then shovel out when you get several inches of poop.

Why couldn't the roost(s) be all at the same evevation?

 

[superchemicalgirl]

I have to go inside daily anyway - collect eggs, eyeball food containers, make sure no one is dead, so it takes me an extra 2 minutes maybe to scrape the poop for composting. I find that I like the poop unadulterated (no shavings) for the majority of what goes in my garden.

It's what works for me. Plenty of people don't have poop boards and the poop falls on the ground or on shavings or hay, etc, and they remove it when necessary. The length of time between cleanings is determined by the number of birds you have.

 

[steinway]

For Henney Penney specifically but anyone can answer - It is my understanding that if you use DLM (deep litter method) that many people do not use poop boards. Do you disagree? Looking at your picture you might be using DLM.

Another question - one of the pictures in this thread showed food / water inside the coop and I thought I had read that you should keep those outside the coop.

I am new to this, planning on getting my first chicks in the spring and am planning and building now.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

That was my food/water inside the coop. I keep the food inside the coop for many reasons - don't want to lug it each day and I don't want to leave it in the run (it will attract hungry animals at night and it can get damp/rained on and ruined). Therefore I hang it in the coop.

I keep my water outside until the daytime temps don't go above freezing. Then I bring it inside the coop and put it on a heated base in the coop under a poop board. The water stays much cleaner when it is located OUTSIDE the coop (they're always throwing shavings into it, plus the dust and general crud in the coop gets in it constantly) so I leave it there when I can.