Thoughts on using plastic pallets for flooring

[IdyllwildAcres]

I vote for dirt floor and DLM

 

[littlebigchicks]

A concern I would have would be the difficulty cleaning the rocks in the lower part. Similar to having gravel in a run, poop will work it's way down into the rocks and be stinky and hard to clean out.

Maybe someone with more experience can chime in about putting sweet pdz (something dense enough to walk on, but odour absorbing) in those pockets?

I'm guessing they'd go inside the coop walls as opposed to having the walls sit on top of them to keep critters from using the space underneath, and for structural reasons?

If you used sheet vinyl flooring, pond liner, something to act as a barrier, you could fill the holes with sand and have a smooth floor surface. If it's going to be really permanent, it wouldn't take too much concrete to fill in the holes.

If you can sort out the details, the skids would be a long lasting tough solution!

It gets fairly wet there when it rains so that's why I put the rocks there, plus I need to level it out since it's rather uneven and this was less expensive than cinderblocks to raise the coop up

I was actually going to have the coop sit on top of the pallets instead of having the pallets go inside the walls. Going inside the walls will make the clearance under the coop too short for the girls to walk around. (picture below for better visual of coop)

I hadn't actually thought of putting anything over the pallets, just let them walk on the plastic. Will this be bad for them? I could easily fill the holes with cement, that's true.

I see no pros to this set up.
Unstable foundation for long term.
What does your coop look like?
What is your geographical location?


Even if the divots had drainage, they would still become filled with poops between the gravel added to them.

@aart could you give me more details on why it would be unstable long term? And any way to make it more stable - if we went this route.

Coop picture:

Located in Charleston, SC

I vote for dirt floor and DLM

What is DLM? We currently have dirt and it's just so difficult to clean out. Was thinking the plastic pallets for the ease of just hosing off. Still rather new to it all, so any tips on cleaning the dirt floor?

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

What is DLM?

Deep litter method

 

[Acre4Me]

On the positive side -your winters aren’t really winters, like some of us deal with. So the freezing won’t move the pallets, or degrade the pallets (like it would for your northern chicken keepers). They are probably pretty durable.

however, they could shift and unevenly move over time, perhaps due to wetness or something. More sun can degrade the pallets. So, securing them together would help.

We have some wet ground. We elevated our walk-in coop about 2.5-3’ above the ground. Best thing we did! We use a ladder style roost and pine shavings on the floor. No poop boards, so we toss the dry bedding around until fully laden with poop, then we clean it out. Birds enjoy the shade under the coop in hot weather.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I see no pros to this set up.
Unstable foundation for long term.
What does your coop look like?
What is your geographical location?


Even if the divots had drainage, they would still become filled with poops between the gravel added to them.

What @aart said.

This appears inferior to placing the coop on the ground in every meaningful measure. Save the plastic pallets, make a second coop out of them for injury, quarantine, brooding, or chicken math.

 

[RLockhart68]

I actually think your plan is feasible. Would the chickens be in it 24/7 or do they have access to free range occasionally? I see all the concern about smell and literally don't understand it. I would make sure you incorporate some type of dust bath area for them to let them be able to scratch, other than that I think your plan is a good solution to a muddy problem

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I actually think your plan is feasible. Would the chickens be in it 24/7 or do they have access to free range occasionally? I see all the concern about smell and literally don't understand it. I would make sure you incorporate some type of dust bath area for them to let them be able to scratch, other than that I think your plan is a good solution to a muddy problem

Placing the coop on dirt, or elevated above a dirt floor, allows use of the deep litter method of management, which is almost completely odor free, produces good compost, and requires only limited and infrequent effort by the owner to maintain.

The plastic pallets are non porous, don't drain, and will do nothing but trap feces into a stinking hard to clean mess which will eventually harden like concrete (if they are lucky), mostly in the divots. Almost every solution to that problem involves installing a floor over the floor of pallets, which begs the question of what purpose the pallets actually serve in such a case?

Moving the pallets to the "ouside", whatever that means, theoretically to lift the coop off the ground for concerns of rot, and perhaps drainage, is just like setting 4x4s on the composite plastic bases (which I use for some projects) instead of the old concrete deck blocks (which I use for other projects). Its wasteful of pallets - I'd cut one up to use as a rot-proof base if that were my plan and save the others - but it has some understandable purpose.

Of course, you then have to deal with predator proofing the now lifted coop back to ground level, and with any breezes the now lifted coop allow under the roosts...

Trying to help the OP solve problems, not create new ones.

 

[Chuckie chicken]

Seeing the pictures of your set up, I'm not sure where you want to put the pallets. I understood the gravel in the photo to be a base you would build on. The rock I advised against was for filling the pockets in the pallets, which I thought would be inside the coop. In the new photo I see two coops connected by a run. In the original photo I saw just a run. Can you clarify your plan?

 

[littlebigchicks]

Seeing the pictures of your set up, I'm not sure where you want to put the pallets. I understood the gravel in the photo to be a base you would build on. The rock I advised against was for filling the pockets in the pallets, which I thought would be inside the coop. In the new photo I see two coops connected by a run. In the original photo I saw just a run. Can you clarify your plan?

The run in the original photo is new and will be an addition to our current setup. We were letting the girls free range, but after losing two to hawks, we aren't letting them do that anymore, so we are trying to create as much roaming space as possible while still keeping them protected.
In the new photo, we had the two coops next to each other while we were introducing the new hens (the littles) to the older hens (the bigs) once they were civil, we removed some of the hardware cloth and connected them giving them more room.
Plan now is to move the current setup and connect to the new 10x20 run. My thought with the pallets is to place the current setup on top of the pallets to keep it off the ground and make it easier to clean, but want feedback from people who have more experience than us on doing this

 

[RLockhart68]

I have my chickens on concrete with very little bedding overnight and free range daily. They roost on a 2x4 landing, 4 boards with approximately 2 inches between each (I would never expect them to roost on a single stick). The only time I had problems with predators was when they were less than a month old. Now that they are full grown it is a non-issue. Maybe I'm just lucky we have coyotes, fox, hawks, snakes and all other sorts of varmints. I was actually afraid to get any fowl because of the number of them.
The op is trying to solve the problem of their chickens being in a muddy enclosure. DLM would just absorb the moisture and not dry out. More smell, more muck, more work (bonus would be more bugs for the birds). Will the divots fill in? Sure will. Will it stink? Imo no. As long as there is no plans to use the pallets in a future house project some cemented on poop is better than chickens standing in mud and muck. Since I seem to be in the minority here, this will be my last post on this thread. Good luck to the op and I hope whatever you choose works for you in your situation.