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  • I had heard of people doing it with rabbits, and had also heard that chicken manure is some great nitrogen for your garden... which is one of the key reasons I got chickens :)

     

    Mine's actually more the design of the whole coop, and may be slightly over-engineered:

    Basically I tried to re-create a tray that I could slide out, just like you might find in a bird cage that has a tray at the bottom which can be slide out.

    1)  Coop floor is about 2 feet off the ground

    2)  Floor of the coops is just 1/2" wire mesh, wrapped around the outside slightly and hooked onto screws to strech it taught.

    3)  ~6 inches under the wire mesh are some 1x2 support beams

    4) I slide in 2 sheets of metal that rests on top of those support beams.  (Sheet metal was part of an old shed that was damaged, so re-purposed)

    This creates multipurpose effect:  gathers the chicken droppings and creates another layer of shade for the chickens in the summer. 

    I've had it almost two years.  Every month or so I slide out the metal sheet and scrape the droppings into a wheelbarrow, which then goes layered into compost or lasagna beds.  Most of the droppings happen just below their roosting bar.

    Once I tried putting plastic down, but it looked pretty foul and stayed wet.  Here in AZ I've never really had any issues with it staying wet enough to breed any flies, and my shelter only has a roof on it, with chicken wire walls.

      If you try this way, I'd suggest cutting out your 1/2" mesh with plenty of room on each side that wraps around the frame.  My first attempt kept sagging and I found that wrapping it around works much better.

     

    After looking at that aricle Lisa posted, and looking at the shape of my wire right now it would be nice to be able to remove that wire mesh and give it a good scrubbing.  I think I'd basically insert one of those "manure boxes" as the base of the coop so i could pull it out...

    Just  a few thoughts.

     

     

  • Hi, I found this interesting article online.  I have also found that my girls rarely dropped in their nesting boxes, but I wasn't quite as proactive as the woman in this article.  Next coop, I might!  I look forward to hearing other's experiences with a manure box.

    http://www.vintagegardengal.com/2009/03/31/backyard-chicken-coop-ro...

    • Interesting article Lisa.  Trevor's tray idea is also an interesting way to approach it.  I had a coop which I could move around inside the fenced area (chicken tractor-type) so I could move it and scrape up the manure and make use of it.  I also only had 3 girls, so the size and moveability of the coop was made easier for the small number of hens.

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