Posted by Kelly Liston on February 28, 2009 at 4:08pm
My husband and I are building our chicken coop this weekend and I had a question about the hen house. We are thinking about putting in a removable tray of some sort so that we can just slide it out and clean off the poop. We were also wondering if we could put a sturdy layer of hardware cloth above that so that when they poop, it will go through that. Can they walk on that without hurting themselves? If they can, then they won't be walking in their poop. What do you think?
You need to be a member of AZ Herb Forum to add comments!
Flooring will deteriorate quickly due to the urine, concrete is best, Dan's method is the easiest and most efficient, and the best for the birds. You can still put the straw down, then just scoop the poop into the compost and wash it down. Clean and healthier for your cluckers...and they will reward you with many eggs!
We are in the same process. We are turning a wooden playhouse into our coop and we were thinking of adding a plywood floor and putting a sheet of laminate flooring over that. Then we would put straw and/or wood chips over that. Does any of this sound good/bad?
The chicken poop will build up on the hardware cloth very quickly, so that's probably out. (Also chickens are better off not walking on wire surfaces because of their tendency to scratch at the ground) Are you talking about just under the roost for the sliding part? I've found it to be very easy to just put some straw down on the bottom of their house and toss that into the compost bin every few weeks.
Replies