Will this EVER end??? 2 questions! (ok, 3)

[Qi Chicken]

1. We have a poured cement slab covered with OSB on the floor. Not all the pieces are secured. Some are floating. We want to put linoleum over the osb. And use deep litter method over that. The coop is 11 x 12. We went pricing today and looks like it could get pretty pricy. Like 200 bucks. Do we need to put a plywood subfloor over the osb? There was one kind of linoleum that you didn't need to stick down, it just sat on top. Black and white squares but felt kind of cushy. If I were a chicken I think I would peck at it till I got a hole in it. Then I would eat it. Do they do this? I don't know the type of linoleum it was but it was at menards for 97 cents a sq ft. Glue linoleum to the osb or could we just use firring (SP?) strips and nail it down?

2. Run is up next. What needs to be out there? They will have water and food in the coop. Do they need water outside? Food outside? I think we will use sand for the run.

3. Ok, I know I only said 2 but we have LOTS of predators. racoons, foxes, hawks and buzzards we also had a bald eagle in our tree 2 times this year! We want to use hardware cloth and plan to use the apron method. We think it should be tall enough to walk into (right??) What is the maximum size of hardware cloth that would be safe to use on the bottom and on the top. The bottom 2 feet, 3 feet how far up to go with the smaller stuff??

Ok, I am on the 3rd gallon of primer and I think the fumes are getting to me. Also the unfulfilled feeling one gets when you say "It's almost done, all we need now is the floor, the paint, the run" ACK. They are 5 weeks old. They need to go outside!

 

[solarchicken]

Hi,

The OSB all needs to be secured to the floor. There is a glue you can buy at Menard's, Home Depot, Lowe's etc. for this purpose. Once the OSB is secured you can then put a finish flooring on it. But, I have a question. Why are you putting OSB, or plywood down? Why are you putting linoleum or something else down? I am new to this but have read you can just have a concrete floor covered with your material such as wood chips, wood pellets, etc and the concrete makes it easy to clean. Also, once the OSB is down you should seal/cover the seams where the OSB sheets butt against each other. I would look on-line for hardwood flooring forums, linoleum flooring forums, etc. and they will have instructions on what you need to prepare the slab for a finish flooring. And, what is good for hardwood will probably be good for linoleum.

 

[greenpeeps]

solarchicken makes sense, get rid of the OSB, it's an added expense that you can use elsewhere. Throw down some hay or staw and tada, the floor is done. Use the OSB for the nesting boxes. Or build a storage box.

My run has water during the hot weather, and that's were we throw treats for the chickens. Other then that the food and water stay in the coop. The chickens alone attract enough preditors, I don't need the added food left outside to help with that, haha.

 

[JMPE]

1. Your OSb is optional. You could just go with the slab, but if you want the wood subfloor, you'll want it secured. Using the deep litter method the birds will hardly ever see the floor at all. My girls never really clean out a hole when the scratch down. There is always litter falling back down, so as long as they can't scratch up an edge, you'll be fine either way.

2. My girls come in for food and water. However in the heat, I have water outside as well. They get treats, greens and scratch in the run. Sand is a great choice.

3. I have 1/2" hardwire for all 6' for my run walls, but I would say after about 3' you're safe to go a little larger. The top of my run is slats from an old wood fence a friend had taken down spaced about 2"-3" appart. Build tall. You will be in there at some point.

I have a funky coop design that I came up with on my own, but it works great for us. I think there are a couple of pictures at the bottom of my BYC website. I have deep litter in the little inside run. That stays pretty clean. Most of my clean-up is under the roost. I love Stall Dry. Keeps it all dry and oder free.

Good luck!

 

[patandchickens]

Frankly unless you live somewhere with very cold winters and you want some extra insurance (besides just good deep bedding) to keep their feeties off the cold concrete in January, just plain concrete is FINE and arguably preferable.

If you're going to put down vinyl you need the OSB all secured, but it would be insane to put plywood on top of it.

However if you have to pay full retail for vinyl flooring, as opposed to scoring a scrap for free or $10 or whatever, honestly I would skip it.

Just bed your concrete floor well and you will be FINE.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat, with a mixture of vinyl-over-osb-over-insulation, osb-over-concrete, and plain-concrete

 

[Qi Chicken]

You guys are awesome. I have to go to work but just wanted to say thanks and yes we do live in a cold place. Iowa, it can be below 0 for several weeks on end. Would the OSB be better then?

Is is possible to get the OSB off the cement if you secure it with glue (is that what someone said?) Say we secure it and put linoleum over it but around the sides poo gets on it. Will it rot and smell?

We just went to the box stores. There is a restore but it wasn't open. I'll be making some calls. For some reason I thought linoleum was a lot cheaper than it is.

I think with the inside size we could fit up to 30 chickens although that seems like too many. But I want to make the run able to accomodate the max # of chickens so that means 300 sq feet. I think we want to use 8 ft landscaping posts and then use hardware cloth all the way around but we were thinking 1x 2 for the bottom 3 feet or so and 2 x2 higher up. Sounds like this is not small enough?


If I may make a suggestion to Nifty chicken...

The run is kind of like a whole different thing unto itself. A large coop, small coop and separate RUN section would be so helpful. Unless there already is one and I just didn't find it.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Enh. You can if you want to. (Or plywood). But honestly if you just get a good deep litter pack in there, that will work just as well. You might want to put a single sheet of OSB or plywood, loose (not attached down), on the concrete under where you will put the feeder, as that is the location where (in my coop anyhow) the bedding is most apt to get scratched away down to bare floor. And you will need to redistribute the bedding with a rake (or your foot) whenever they get part of the floor too thin. Truthfully though I think it is the simplest and most noncommittal (yet effective) solution

Is is possible to get the OSB off the cement if you secure it with glue (is that what someone said?) Say we secure it and put linoleum over it but around the sides poo gets on it. Will it rot and smell?

Oooo, oooo, oooo, DON'T do that. DO NOT glue it down. No, you will not be able to get it off without a lot of work *and* permanent residue on the slab, and yes, it may tend to rot and get horrible and you will then be powerless to do anything about it. Ooooh. Don't.

If you DO use OSB I highly recommend painting it first.

Personally I'd skip it, though.

we were thinking 1x 2 for the bottom 3 feet or so and 2 x2 higher up. Sounds like this is not small enough?

I wouldn't do it myself. For one thing, make sure the 2x2 wire is heavy enough gauge -- the only 2x2 they sell around here is pretty flimsy (and poorly welded), intended for garden or light pet use not for predatorproofing livestock.

I would use something HEAVY GAUGE and LIVESTOCK TYPE (serious), anything up to 2x4" holes, with nothing larger than 1" holes on the bottom 2-3'. The smaller-holed lower-down stuff needn't be super strong, if it is overlaid on the main fence wire. 1/2" poultry netting is nice, or hardwarecloth; but even 1" chickenwire or 1/2" plastic garden netting is pretty okay. All you're trying to do is keep chicken heads in, and slow down the ability of predators to get their arms in.

If I may make a suggestion to Nifty chicken...

The run is kind of like a whole different thing unto itself. A large coop, small coop and separate RUN section would be so helpful. Unless there already is one and I just didn't find it.

I think this is an excellent idea, you should email or PM him!

Good luck, have fun,

Pat​

 

[Prospector]

First a caveat - our chickens haven't moved into the coop yet, and the coop is only mostly done. You may have better ideas than I do.

We made the back wall of our coop completely openable in a way that doors and wind and whatever won't affect our cleaning operations. Its like a tailgate on a truck. I will post pics eventually. In order to avoid the whole "What do I use for a floor" question, my plan is to make a floor pan that goes into the coop. It will be in 2 sections, each 4'X3' to keep them manageable. Each floor pan will have a piece of scrap "waterproof material" glued on it.

To clean the coop, drop the tailgate, pull out a pan, clean it up and replace it. Repeat with other pan. The goal is to be able to just spray down the pans with a hose or whatever. In th ewinter we can run a garden hose from our utility sink to have warm water to wash down the pans with.

I am suggesting this because it may work for you if you want something over your concrete slab. Keep an eye out during the smmer for anything scrubbable and waterproof that would work for you. It could be children's swimming pools, pond liners, Little Tykes picnic table tops, etc. Anything cheap, waterproof and scratchable. I don't plan on spending more than $5 for the flooring. If I can't find what I want, I will fibreglass a set of sliding closet doors that are already lying in the garage.

 

[Qi Chicken]

OK< Every new post makes me want to scrap the OSB. At this point I am ALL about easy! I can NOT paint any more OSB. Just can NOT. I didn't paint the ceiling either, just couldn't do it.

So if we do the deep litter method on top of the concrete slap and we remove all the shavings 2x a year or so and give the thing a good cleaning, how do we clean the concrete without getting the osb soaked? Should we put that shower surround stuff on the walls? Or something extra where the floor meets the wall?

Pat--I'll be emailing when we finish the inside and get to the outside! We have gale force winds, rain for days and it froze a few nights ago. I'm glad the babies aren't out there! This is not normal May weather.

Some kind of tarp on the floor sounds like it could be useful. What are all your thoughts??

Thanks!

 

[Prospector]

I think a tarp would get shredded. You need something more durable. As soon as 1 thread comes free, the birds will tear the whole thing apart. I can see wrapping the run with tarps in the winter, but not using one on the floor. Once again, I am as new to this as you are.