Problem With Frozen Poop!!

[valmom]

I put down the pelleted type of horse bedding (woody pet) that I wet down to puff up, then let it dry and bed the hens with it. A couple of inches at least. Very easy to scoop the poopsicles with a cat litter scoop every day. I much prefer frozen poop!

 

[Chickie Mamma]

Thanks everybody! I guess I didn't have a thick enough bedding of pine shavings. I'll get the chisel out and put a thicker coat of bedding. Ps... Love the nicknames for frozen poop!

 

[Three_Blessings]

I've got the frozen poo here too. I just use a good shovel and scrape it up.

 

[VT Chick-lit]

Frozen poo, I have found is much easier to clean up. I have a small bucket and a dust pan with a short handled garden hoe. The hens poo lands in the hay beneath their roosts or in the wood shavings on the floor. Every morning I go out to the coop with my bucket, dust pan and hoe and do my janitorial duties by hoeing the balls and patties of frozen poo into the dust pan and then depositing that contents into the bucket. It takes me less than 3 minutes to clean the coop after my 4 hens. The frozen poo comes up neatly while the unfrozen stuff will smear and have to be scraped. The run I only clean occasionaly with a rake, when bones and other desbris become unsanitary.

 

[GardenerGal]

Poopsicles! One of my favorite barnyard topics!

My poultry barn has a concrete floor, with stalls (former homes for goats) filled with shavings for chickens and also as nighttime bedrooms for waterfowl who spend the day outside.

Overnight, the chooks roost in the rafters and poop onto the concrete floor and the stall rails, so on a frosty winter morn I am greeted by little plops of frozen poop on both the wood and the cement.

For the stall rails, I take a sturdy metal garden trowel and a mallet and... like a fine sculptor (

) I tap the end of the trowel handle so the sharp tip knocks the poop off the rail. then I take a flat metal shovel and, using my foot to leverage the blade against the ground, I scrape off any frozen poops that have landed on the cement overnight. Then I sweep it all up and it goes into the compost heap.

Sometimes the poop is so darned frozen to the railings that I have to chip it away with the trowel and mallet. Other times it comes off easily in a perfect, smooth-bottomed bon-bon.

It's very therapeutic! Brings out the artiste in me! I can pretend to be a sculptress of ice sculpture!

 

[lovemychix]

Poop scoopers I have found handy. I bought a cheap snow shovel with a flat blade and that helps get that stuff up fast. I also use a huge metal drywall/putty knife to get any stuck on poopies.

 

[LynneP]

For anyone who cares (heh) the poop is easily removable with a paint scraper until it hits -6C. Then, like some have said, it helps to sprinkle some shavings, Stable Boy or food-grade DE on roosts and platforms so you can continue to remove it. I hate those albuminey one the most, they seem to freeze fast!

We're in the middle of *another* dangerous cold spell. Girls are in today and not one of them pecked the pop door to get out. Couldn't get 2 poops, but the rest are stiing like popsicles in the catch bucket.

 

[EweSheep]

The ice spade cutter will do the job as well (the one you can chip the ice off from your sidewalk).

I, too, am dealing with FROZEN poop pile and its work getting them out of there. There are corn cob bedding down there but somehow, it got wet and froze up. So I will have to wait for the big thaw to come out.

I keep checking on the smell too and lay down stall dry and lime to keep it down if it does get too wet.

So hopefully by Thursday, it will thaw out oenough for me to clean unless we get several inches of snow tonight.