Roost in a coop

[pacetruckguy]

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Sounds like it won't be too long before you'll be having eggs over easy. Did you get any roosters with your chicks, and are you going to keep a rooster? My hens were about 6 months old before they started laying, but they have been laying like crazy ever since.

 

[gsim]

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I would be sure to set them 12" from wall. Then build a poop board 24" wide and mount it under the roost. Glue linoleum on it for easy cleaning. Scrape daily into a container.

This will make your litter last many times longer. I replace mine once a year with my 23 chooks. But even twice a year is not bad at all.

I set my roosts 48" high, all of them so no real higher spots for the chooks to fight over. I set the poop boards at 24' ht. Chooks just hop up on poop board first, then up to roost. No walkboard needed. And the poop goes to my garden all winter long and into compost in warmer weather.

 

[darkmatter]

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I recommend you hinge your roosts for lift up in order to clean. See my BYC page for pics. I made a ladder-like arrangement with 2"x4"s for the frame with rounded 2"X2" for the roost rungs. One end of the 2"X4"s was rounded off with a pivot in the center made of a carriage bolt which mounts to the building frame, I used washers between the frame and roost ladder to assist in pivoting. The roost is held up by chains and I put a cable through a pulley with a weight on it to make it easy to lift.