What to put on small 4x5 raised coop floor?

[Bcmacias]

We are almost finished with our coop and trying to decide on what to put on the floor. The coop is raised, with a run underneath. There will be a pop door on the floor of the coop to access the run below, and it will always be open. We have 3/4” plywood down now, going to put a layer of vinyl over the top of that, and then what? We have 4 chicks in a small suburban backyard in Missouri. I have them in a large Tupperware now with pine shavings...should I keep with the pine shavings on top of the vinyl, or do sand, or something else? I change the bedding every other day now. When the chicks move into their new coop I want to keep it very clean and the smell down. I don’t think that I’m crazy about the deep litter method because I want to keep it clean and the smell down, but I could be convinced otherwise if there are good benefits...I know it is warmer, but how is the smell? Also, I need to figure out water. We are going to keep water and food in the run. We have the pvc tube feeder that will be in the run that I will be able to fill from outside of the run. They kick their bedding in their waterer now, and I’m constantly digging the pine shavings out. I know if the waterer is in the run with a dirt floor then I won’t have that problem. Any suggestions on how to do the waterer? It gets cold enough to freeze a lot in the winter. We could have access to electricity for a heated waterer but I would like to try to avoid using electricity if that is possible. Thanks so much!!!

 

[svh]

I use the deep (around 2 feet deep) litter over a dirt/rock floor in the coop, and run, and have NO smell at all ! In fact, I'm amazed at how little odor there is !
I have very good ventilation though.

I use shavings, leaves, forest debris, kitchen scraps, and a small amount of straw in the nest boxes. I have a couple of straw bales in the coop, that get scratched up, and spread around as well.

I hang my feeders, and have a heated water base set up on blocks, about 10 inches high, to minimize the debris getting kicked into it. In my experience, they will always kick stuff into any thing you don't want them to kick stuff into !

If you don't use an electric heated water base, the water will freeze ! I have read of other methods of keeping the water from freezing, such as changing the water a few time a day, but I I take the easy way out, and use a heated base.

 

[aart]

There will be a pop door on the floor of the coop to access the run below...

This will make your bedding/cleaning more difficult, it also 'wastes' floor space in the coop.
Valuable floor space in a coop so small.
If at all possible I would strongly suggest you change it now to a poop door in the side of the coop instead.


What kind of bedding you use may depend on how you manage the manure.
This is about cleaning, but covers my big picture
-I use poop boards under roosts with thin(<1/2") layer of sand/PDZ mix, sifted daily(takes 5-10mins) into bucket going to friends compost.
-Scrape big or wet poops off roost and ramps as needed.
-Pine shavings on coop floor, add some occasionally, totally changed out once or twice a year, old shavings added to run.
- My runs have semi-deep litter(cold composting), never clean anything out, just add smaller dry materials on occasion, add larger wood chippings as needed.
Aged ramial wood chippings are best IMO.
-Nests are bedded with straw, add some occasionally, change out if needed(broken egg).
There is no odor, unless a fresh cecal has been dropped and when I open the bucket to add more poop.

That's how I keep it 'clean', have not found any reason to clean 'deeper' in 7 years.

 

[Acre4Me]

We have a raised coop. We have a plywood floor and vinyl on top. We use pine shavings. We only charge them if they smell. So, if the poop is there, but desiccating, and not producing ammonia, we toss it around and just let it be. We just changed out bedding and it seemed to be mostly dried poop coating the shavings. Perfect for our compost pile) more poop than wood. We've had chickens for 2.5 years and have always done it this way. The raised coop is nice bc it stays drier in our fairly wet area. In the winter, sometimes the bedding is just frozen in place. In this case we just throw more bedding top and clean out once the bedding thaws enough to be broken apart and scraped off the floor. We do not use a poop board, so there is a decent poop load in the shavings - toss it around every few days is good. Our coop has a single slant roof with a lot of ventilation, which is important.

Water: we supply water in the run. If it is especially hot, we put it into the coop for overnight too, so they can hydrate as much as possible. We set out multiple water stations (non-freezing weather), and try to place them in the shade, or we shade them with a propped up large piece of OSB or similar. We went to a Home improvement store and bought solid cinder blocks to raise up the waterer to back height of the birds. We have some larger birds, so it is pretty high, and we bought a couple extra blocks as steps for the smaller birds. Use solid blocks bc then rodents cannot use them as hiding places. We place the large 5 gallon waterer on this. We place smaller ones onto of blocks elsewhere, but we could hang them if we wished to do so. In the winter, the large 5 gallon galvanized waterer gets placed on blocks in the coop on top of the base heater sold for use with the galvanized waterer. We do have electric in our coop and can plug the heated base directly into the outlet.


Not the greatest pic, but here is the 5 gallon waterer, shaded by OSB, and on top of solid cinder blocks. There is a full size chicken next to it on the right. They still manage to get a fair bit of residue in this waterer due to dust bathing, but does not cause a problem. Oh, you can see our miscellaneous chipped wood run base. Not quite as large bits as the Ramial wood that @aart mentions above, but larger than shavings, for sure, and are working well.