wood shavings on wire floor

[Missbehavin]

I plan on having a 1/2" x 1/2" wire on the bottom of my coop. I plan on putting wood shavings on top of that and a catch box below it all.. How often would u recommend cleaning with four hens in a 4 x 4 house?
Thanks
Debbie

 

[fireguy56]

Hi, I am by no means an expert but I think that wood shavings are gonna fall through the wire eventually. I have pine shavings on the floor of my coop, which has a congoleum covered plywood floor. In time the girls scratch around the shavings until they eventually turn into sawdust. It will fall through your wire or cake up and be a pain to clean. the whole idea of the deep litter method is to keep building up layers to help absord poop and moisture. Then ya clean it all out and start over. Some BYC ers only do it yearly. I'm still waiting to see how long we will go, but to date is working fine so far. I just don't think it will work on wire. My opinion only, maybe someone who has tried it will answer your ?. good luck,
Erik

 

[spotstealer]

I had a wire floor in my brooder. It worked well. I framed the wire floor in sections so I could remove them easily. In my coop, I also have a linoleum covered floor with shavings. It cleans easily. Because of the size of my coop, I didn't want a wire floor, it would have been way too cumbersome to clean.

 

[Eggcessive]

I have a small chicken hutch with a wire floor with a tray underneath it that I used at night for 6 banties that were separated from the group for 2 months. They were in a grow out pen during the day. Their poo was in globs that mostly didn't go through the 1/2 inch hardware cloth, so I had to clean it daily. Only 1/2 of the poo came through it. I would recommend the linoleum flor cover with wood shavings--so much easier to clean.