poop boards - whats the best and cleanest way to make and keep up with

I am very new to the game also, but we installed a 12" wide removable 'poop' board below the roosts, and we cover it with newspaper. Then twice a week we take th soiled paper off and rerplace with clean paper; we use newspaper because it goes straight to the compost heap along with the poop. this has worked well for us. We had to install large spring clips to the front of the newspaper to keep the flying hens from blowing them off. Hope this helps.

 

I use those blue tarps you can buy at the big hardware box stores. I like it because it's easy to remove, take outside, spray with a bleach solution, hose off and let it dry in the sun.

 

I rotate out boot trays and some of the zillions of bin lids my wife hoards....uh, I mean collects. All are about 14" x 24", made of plastic and clean up nicely. They sit on a shelf 8" below the roost board.

 

I don't think there really is a "best" method. It all depends on your personal preferences. Personally, I like to use plastic boot trays and take them over to the composter to dump them out every morning. I give the trays a quick hose off (except when we get freezing weather), then replace them in the coop.

It takes only a few minutes, and I like how there is no accumulation of droppings inside the coop. I use sand on the coop floor, too, and it's easy to pick out any stray droppings with a reptile litter scoop I have taped to a long handle.

 

I used some of those coated (melamine?) shelf boards from Lowes as poop boards. I just use an old wide bladed paint scraper to scrape the boards into a bucket. Just takes a couple of minutes to clean. Poop comes right off. Some folks have done the same thing by putting vinyl flooring material over their boards to make them easy to scrape off.

 

We remodeled an old chicken coop, painted the plywood floor with an easy-clean finish. We then spread a 2-3" layer of wood shavings around under the roosts to absorb the poo and to help insulate. The composting manure adds some heat to the space during cold months. When the smell becomes too noticeable I take a snow shovel to collect the fertilizer for the compost pile. So the birds won't 'dust' in the shavings I put a tub of sand in the corner which they patiently take turns to bathe.

 

I used plywood under the roost with some leftover vinyl bathroom tiles. A quick scrape each morning into a bucket and done.

 

Well my roosts are technically the rafters of my coop. The nest boxes I access from the outside and are on the oustide of the coop so the poo falls straight down to the floor of my coop. I use would shaving. A quick shovel will my bucket shovel once every week or so and bame clean. I also spray a chicken safe dissenfectant on the entire coop. THe water and food is in the run so I dont have to worry about my birds pooping in it.