My current way of keeping my chicken runs is all about keeping it snake free as well as clean. But my youngest is off to college soon, so think this year I'll try going back to a litter method. Even with no litter for years, my oldest coops have soft, rich, amazing dirt. My new coops have rock hard, pale, chunky dirt...lol. Chickens do amazing stuff to soil.If you are interested in converting a cement mixer into a compost sifter, start with watching this YouTube video to get the idea of the design....
Then, I would suggest checking out my thread Harvesting my Chicken Run Compost - Black Gold!. I did a slight redesign on the idea of the YouTube video cement mixer compost sifter that does not require any drilling into the cement barrel. That means you can take off the compost sifter and still have a 100% hole free cement mixer. IMHO, it's an improvement on the original concept. It's both easier to put together, and it also preserves the integrity of the cement mixer if you ever want to use it for cement work at a later date.
I also made different sifter screen inserts for 1/4 inch fine compost for potting soil, 1/2 wire for compost for my raised beds, and 1/2 X 1 inch screen for top mulch compost. Well, you probably don't need to sift top mulch, but I do anyways and toss the larger chucks back into the chicken run for more composting action.
If you already have the cement mixer, then you can put together the compost sifter, barrel and all hardware, for about $50 (3 years ago when I did at least, current prices may vary).
Nothing better than making your own chicken run black gold compost in your own backyard, saving yourself 100's of dollars over buying the same quantity at the big box stores. It's one of the few significant investments I have made that has paid for itself in only hours of use.
The other big benefit to converting your chicken run into a chicken run composting system is that the chickens will spend all day outside, scratching and pecking in the compost, looking for bugs and worms to eat. I don't know what all they find to eat, but my commercial chicken feed cost goes down by half in the summer when my chickens are outside in the compost run.
I also find that the egg yolks are a darker orange when the chickens are digging and eating good stuff from the chicken run compost system. It's just a winning system anyway you look at it.
Thanks for the info... definitely something I want to try.