Questions about Coop flooring and RUN AREA

[cajunlizz]

What is the best material for the coop flooring ?


Do ya'll put hay or pine savings down on this floor ?


What about in the RUN AREA ? Do you put shavings or HAY ? VERY new to this and need TIPS ASAP .....

Easiest way to CLEAN COOP AND RUN ?

 

[Chirpy]

If you have a wood or cement floor in the coop I'd put linoleum over it and then use pine shavings. It makes it so easy to clean. If you have a dirt floor I'd use the pine shavings also it will just be harder to clean but, if you use the DLM (deep litter method) the shavings start to compost if it's on dirt -it won't on wood or cement.

I personally don't put anything down in the run but some people do due to wet conditions. You can use shavings, pea gravel even leaves (if they are dry). You just want to keep things dry both inside and outside. Mine are on the plain ole dirt and love it.

I don't recommend ever using hay or straw as bedding. They are much harder to keep clean and can harbor mites, etc. because of the hollow stems (on straw). They matt and generally stay much wetter than shavings.

 

[Poison Ivy]

I put a layer of sand on my coop floor and then I use coastal hay. It works out nice and it's easy to clean. I replace the hay every 3 months or so and then once a year I sweep out the sand and put new down. I've done that for years and never had a problem.

 

[Dawn419]

Our coops have wood floors...one has linoleum over the wood floor for easier cleaning. Just click on my website link (under my username) to see the insides of the coops and progression pix.

We use pine shavings for litter (get them from Tractor Supply or WalMart) and the Deep Litter Method. I will be cleaning the two oldest coops out in the next week or two and starting the DLM all over again. I only use hay in the nest boxes, as far as the coops are concerned.

I don't really add anything to the run, except for Food Grade DE, which I use to dry out the poop and keep the smell at next to nothing. I occassionally throw out a flake of hay, into the runs, to entertain the chickens for awhile. To clean the run, I use an old broom to sweep up the poop weekly ot bi-weekly, it all depends on the weather.


Dawn

 

[mirime]

I'm interested in this thread because I'm also new (just ordered chicks, haven't built the coop/run yet) - but two things: 1) pea gravel - don't the chickens eat that? (I hope they don't because I have a place in my yard that has a lot of pea gravel and I would like to use that area for the coop). And 2) does anyone have any photos of their run in the winter? (covered up? how do you keep it less wet? Can you use DLM in the snow? I tried to search for "snow in run" throughout this forum but my computer locked up). TIA!

 

[SeaChick]

In the hen house: we have a wood floor covered in linoleum/vinyl flooring scrap. We use pine shavings. We have found that using a droppings board really helps keep the litter clean. The night's poop all lands on the board (also linoleum-covered and scattered with shavings to absorb liquid) and therefore doesn't get tracked into the litter. We scrape the board into a covered bucke each morning.

In the run: our run is covered with clear plastic roofing so it is quite dry. We use hay or dry autumn leaves, with a scoop of DE every month or so. About every 4-6 weeks I remove the shredded remains of whatever we used as litter, mulch the shrubs with it, and add a new bale of hay or bag of leaves.

Pics, if you want to see them, are here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1766-Our_Garage_Coop

 

[smpezzi]

This ties in with a question hubby just asked the other day.......Hubby is a custom cabinent maker and deals with all sorts of wood- he was asking if there is a list of ok shavings to use for the girls as he now calls them

He knows some would without a doubt be bad to use but he is just thinking that since we have a constant source of shavings out of the work shop it may be a way to cut a small amount of cost for those times when our lovely local economy leaves us with only a few dollars after bills are paid. I tried to do a search but I guess the puter didn't like the search cause it kept locking up on it grrrr Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions

 

[cajunlizz]

Quote:
i WAS TOLD USING HAY CAN CAUSE MITES , HAVE YOU HAD ANY PROBLEMS ? hOW MANY CHICKENS DO YOU HAVE AND WHAT SIZE COOP AND RUN ?

wE LIVE IN THE CITY ALSO AND CITY ORDINCES SAY WE CAN HAVE AS MANY CHICKENS AS WE WANT as long AS THEY ARE 25 FT. from any neighboring property ( including our home ) and 25 FT. FROM ANY BUSINESS . AND THEY do HAVE TO BE ENCLOSED AT ALL TIMES , EITHER IN CAGES , OR FENCED IN RUN OR YARD . ALSO , NATURALLY SANITATION IS A MUST AT ALL TIMES . WE HAVE 35 CHICKENS . all AGES , FROM 10 - 12 WEEKS OLD , TO 4 MONTHS , TO full grown , ALL PULLETS .

 

[cajunlizz]

Quote:
i know pine shavings is most common . was told not to use cedar . not sure about cypress . wish i could find out about cypress , son works in all cypress work shop and he could supply me with all i need .

 

[Davaroo]

Most people have too many chickens for the "run", making it more of an extension of the coop.

To effectively absorb the droppings and scratching from chickens, it must be really huge - were talking hundreds of times bigger than the coop. For the soil/turf to actually use the droppings and not be harmed by all the scratching chickens do, you need something like 400sq ft/bird.

If you are planning to resort to all sorts of "treatments," like sanding and liming and using DE, well, that isn't really great planning, at all. It simply means you are planning for overcrowding.

But most people dont have the kind of room I'm talking about and Heaven forbid they reduce the number of birds they keep! So we need a compromise. Consider this:
Don't have a run as we think of it. Have a "yard"

"... There was a great revolution in the chicken business when Geoffrey Sykes, of England, developed a new yarding system in the Fifties.
This used a small yard (pen) covered with a thick layer of straw, with more straw added frequently. This was the equivalent of the "deep litter" scheme, only reproduced outdoors.

Mr. Sykes also recommended that shade and a windbreak be provided by a solid fence around the yard, or by other means, such as rows of haybales. Once a year, the old straw was removed. This method eliminated barren dirt, and thus the resulting poo-mud and pathogens. It was quite soon forgotten, though, because the industry was moving to high-density confinement methods before te Sykes method became widely established." - - source: wikipedia

Ideally, you would use this with alternating yards each season and cultivating plants on the previous years' yard.
It's a break form the normal, but it minimizes the filth (feces) related problems we experience. You dont want your birds to live in filth, do you?