Poop boards....

[David61]

I refuse to have an indoor cat. I will never clean a catbox as long as i live.
IMO, The chicken poop board is easy to use and the less coop work of all methods. Every 4th or 5th day I take a small yard rake (metal kids toy) and rake into a plastic tote. add a little stall fresh to the board and rake. It keeps the pine shavings on the coop floor clean and dry. I'm not having muck out the coop floor. When i do, its light dry shavings. no matted poop.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

I don't know who the person was that decided to use poop boards with PDZ in them but I hope they won an award of some sort!!

I'm not sure if JT is the original inventor but he is who I first learned this process from years ago. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/what-is-sweet-pdz.1577385/#post-26801922
It's like everyone is finding out, biggest game changer in my 20years. I love my clean coop

 

[ChickNanny13]

Ooohh I love hearing that!! I'm getting ready to try poop boards with PDZ... hoping to build them this week or next.

There is smooth concrete flooring on the side of the coop where my roosting bars are... @TelfTheElf or anyone have thoughts on just building a box with the concrete as the base, or should I go with plywood base?? I'm also trying hemp bedding outside of the poop boards.

I recommend building the poop board under the roost about 18" below the roost extended out about 4". Maybe I'm misunderstanding your idea of "concrete flooring", thinking it will be on the ground, they will end up scratching in it. I would go plywood but what I did was (Hubby had left over sheet of plastic/vinyl used for his boat panel) cut a piece to "line" the plywood, removing when I wanted to clean.

I recently tried hemp bedding in the brooder ... I prefer it but having to order from Amazon as none can be purchased here.

 

[rossi09]

I saved money on mine by building it like a litter box. Raised sides and filled with all purpose sand, then sprinkle some pdz on top. It scoops so easily and nothing ever hits the boards themselves. It's my favorite feature in the coop! We actually added an extension on the coop this year so we had enough room to put it in and easily get in to clean it. Last year, I had to change out the bedding every week or so. There hasn't been a single piece of poop on the bedding since I installed the poop box.

 

[rlhagan56]

It was me. We looked at different ideas and I realized the PDZ I used for our horses would be awesome. I also have a bucket I scoop poop into, close the lid and when full of poop and PDZ I dump it into our compost pile. I use a metal kitty litter scooper. No smell, no flies, and no added moisture in the coop.

 

[RojoMarz]

what brand? got a link?

I use Stall Refresher. What ever you get, be sure it's granuals, not powder.

 

[mossyoakpro]

I hear that the floor stays cleaner with a poop board, an advantage for walking on the floor. (Ours is a walk-in coop, not a raised floor that you reach into.)

But if my goal is to generate compost from the chicken droppings eventually (I do want to have a scratching area where I can add in soaked seeds to generate sprouts for them and generate compost for me at the end of the process)... I'm still confused.

Maybe I should use a poop board of some type... and then take that poop and add it (with browns) to an outside compost area where the chickens will scratch it in? The chickens will not be scratching it in daily if I'm using a poop board, but they would with deep litter.

(I've been reading here of the different strategies for poop board construction, including one HERE IN THIS POST where the poop drops through or is scraped through the poop board to a lower surface which can then be emptied less often -- it's not on the poop board and it's not onto the coop floor where chickens are walking. Isn't that the best of both worlds? Or would the poop collected down there start smelling or generate heat as a further post mentions? Not sure if that further post was talking about the same type fall-thru poop board, might have been meaning falling thru to the ground and deep litter on the ground or something. Still confused. )

Sometimes what seems the logical design choice turns out to be a big mistake; trying to avoid that here. lol

My coop sits within 75 feet of my house so my goal was to get rid of all smell if possible...so far the poop boards with the stall refresher is working very good. I also have sand in my run and I use the same scooper and get the stuff I see that the chickens have not covered up already. IMO the poop boards is a life saver are far as being a labor reducer...

 

[mossyoakpro]

I don't know if you're actually buying pdz, but save yourself a ton of money and buy stall fresh, same thing, way cheaper

My local co-op has the PDZ so I try to support them when possible but if it becomes too expensive I'll get the TSC brand. Thanks!!

 

[MamaFox78]

I recommend building the poop board under the roost about 18" below the roost extended out about 4". Maybe I'm misunderstanding your idea of "concrete flooring", thinking it will be on the ground, they will end up scratching in it. I would go plywood but what I did was (Hubby had left over sheet of plastic/vinyl used for his boat panel) cut a piece to "line" the plywood, removing when I wanted to clean.

I recently tried hemp bedding in the brooder ... I prefer it but having to order from Amazon as none can be purchased here.

So that's exactly what I was thinking as for dimensions... but yes, either plywood or concrete it would be on the floor, I was thinking of boxing it in with a 1x6" to create enough of a lip that if they scratch in either the bedding or PDZ it'll stay put. I guess I could make a raised platform a few inches below the lowest bar, but I'd have to get creative with how it wraps around. I love your idea of removable linoleum to line it!!

I should probably clarify about my coop - it's about 100 years old, a solid masonry structure that's about 10' x 24'. It's got a 10x10 room for nesting boxes with a dirt floor (used to be wooden floor boards but they were so rotted I had to rip them out), a middle section with shelving & storage bins, and another 10x10 room with roosting bars that angle up from the floor to midway up the wall - the coop had been set up this way since about the 1950's, so I just went with it!

 

[lifein1840]

I don't know who the person was that decided to use poop boards with PDZ in them but I hope they won an award of some sort!! That is the best thing ever!! Glad I decided to do that in my build....clean up is like 5 minutes and done!

I built my poop board out of an old 24" hollow core door on legs about 36" tall, framed it with 2x4s and built the nest boxes underneath. The roost bar is just about 4-6" above the poop board (old door). It has worked so well and freed up space in the coop! There is even storage room under the nests for bales of pine shavings! The whole thing takes up an area of 2' deep x8' long x 3' high against one wall of the coop and provides roosting, easy cleaning, 5 nest boxes and storage - a WIN in my book!!