roosts and dropping board in a small coop

[Hobie Ranch]

We're finishing our coop for 10 hens. It's smallish so we have to be efficient with use of space. It's a 5' x 5' room with 3 nest boxes built out to the exterior. We're thinking of doing one level of L shaped roost up high with a ladder of sorts to access it.

I have two questions: If we do the roosts close to the walls, how close is too close for them to be comfy? And how much width of poop deck do we need to have on either side of the roost to catch that good stuff?

Thanks!

 

[patandchickens]

I find that a 16" wide droppings board (the roost centered over it) will catch most of the poo. Not quite all, but some of those squirty cecal poos I do not think ANYthing is going to catch, except the opposite wall of the coop

I would not give the chickens any less than 12" clearance between roost and wall, and really 16-18" is better. You might consider mounting your roost in such a way that you can easily move it if you have second thoughts about its location, one way or the other. This is pretty easily done if it is supported at each end by a horizontal 2x4 cleat, maybe a foot or two long, so that you can unscrew the roost and move it a little ways along the cleat and re-screw.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[gsim]

10 inches minimum for full-sized birds. Coat poop planks with linoleum. You will be glad you did. If you can get formica scraps, they would be great too . Use lightweight plywood because you may want to remove for cleaning. With formica, you could leave in place and use a drywall knife to scrape the poop off into a bucket. Linoleum might be too soft to do that as the knife could dig in to it.

 

[gsim]

Almost forgot to say that I have a set of roosts at 2 ft ht, and another set above and much closer to wall at 4 ft ht. No steps or walkboards or ladders anywhere. They just hop up to the lowest, then to the highest, no sweat. When descending, they just flap and jump all the way down from the top ones.

 

[fiberart57]

Hello,
I have six birds in a 4'x6' and 4' tall coop with an indoor nest box. Their roosts are L-shaped, 12 inches from the wall. I don't use droppings boards for lack of room but I use shavings on the floor. The girls go outside every day and their droppings from the roosts are lined up neatly under on the shavings and easily removed with a litter scoop. They don't need a ladder; the roosts are about 18 inches up off the floor. I felt guilty about not having droppings boards but this works out very well.

I do need to say that I live in Colorado; a pretty arid climate so the girls spend time in their run or in the backyard and the droppings dry out and don't stink.

Mary

 

[awtandrocks]

I have 10 chicken that overnight in a 4' by 5.5' coop (I know kinda small but they have an attached 12' x 8' covered run and free range during the day)

This is my roost setup, I don't use poop boards I just have shavings on the floor and scoop out every now and again. It's about 16" off of the wall and the roost is at 4' and lower roost at 2'.

 

[Hobie Ranch]

Thank you all so much. This is really helpful. I wouldn't try to get so specific about all this except that we are tight on space. And yes, I know that our coop is smallish (5' x 5' x 8' high), but our girls also get a big old run (probably 10' x 50'), and any who are so inclined just hop the fence and free range!