When measuring ht. for poop boards, do you ...

[Knock Kneed Hen]

measure from the ground the the bottom of the board or do you measure from the ground to the first roost? I was planning on placing my poop boards 36 up from the ground because I'm tall and I want to make cleaning easy.

However, if the bottom is at 36" and I go up another 8" before the roosts (so I can get under them to scrape), is that way too high for heavy breed birds?

Okay, this is maybe a dumb question. As chickens get older are they unable to get up to their roost? Is it hard on their joints to have them that tall since many will want to fly down from their roost?

Every time I think I have this all figured out

!!

By tomorrow morning I need to know:
1) How high should the bottom of the poop board be?
2) How high off the ground should the nest boxes be? (I'm making them 14 x 14 and they'll partly go under the poop board)
3) How many nest boxes should I put in for say 20 birds? 4 OR 5 ?

 

[newchicksnducks]

Take a deep breath...it'll be fine! Everyone has their own way of doing things. My droppings board is 30" off the floor. It is 30" wide. The lowest roost is 9" from the board, the upper one is 20" from the board. The upper roost is 12" from the wall and the lower roost 26" from the wall. Our roosts sit into 2X4 mounted on the wall that have a notch cut out of them. This way it is easy to lift the roost up when I want to scrape the board. I just lift the lower roost and place it next to the upper roost when cleaning. I'm not real tall (5'7") but 30" high is plenty high with no back issues. It could be lower and would not be a problem. We do have a ramp in place for the girls to use, but 90% of the time, they just fly down and hop up. Hope this helps.

Forgot about the nest box question. They usually say 1 box for 4 girls, which would be 5 boxes, but you could probably get away with 4. They usually like the same box anyways!

I have our lowest box about 18 inches off the ground, room enough for them to use the floor space under the boxes.

(see the unused ramp?)

Good luck!

 

[Knock Kneed Hen]

@ newchicksnducks: AWESOME!! Thank you so much for taking the time to put it all down for me. I needed it out in writing like that.

 

[teach1rusl]

Do give them the option of a chicken ladder. They will use it if they can't fly up there. Your heavier breeds (BOs and such) may have some issues flying up there (or maybe my BO is just athletically challenged...lol...because some days she'll walk around looking up there like she's thinking "Are you kidding me?? Where's the elevator?"). Some of mine will fly up, others will use the ladder. And getting down is an issue too with height, because you don't want it to be too hard on the heavier breeds' legs.

 

[patandchickens]

You know what, 8" one way or the other really does not make much difference

If you are concerned about their little leggies when they jump down (and it seems like most chickens DO jump/flap/plummet down, rather than using a ladder, although there are exceptions - they use ladders or stepstools when going *up*, though), I see no reason why you couldn't just lower the whole assembly 6-10". That would still leave plenty of clearance for them to walk under the droppings board, with a smidge less height for them to come down from.

Honestly it is not the biggest deal in the world, though

Good luck, ahve fun,

Pat