How Often To Clean Out Chicken Coop

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• Forums
• Raising BackYard Chickens
• Coop & Run - Design, Construction, & Maintenance

how often do you clean your coop

• Thread starter incubatingisfun
• Start date May 31, 2010

• #1

Dec 15, 2009

2,476

12

196

Alaska

just curious how often every one cleans their coop

• #2

ADozenGirlz

The Chicken Chick[IMG]emojione/assets/png/00ae.png

Quote:
When we first got our coop we had a droppings pit, which was a total drag and required cleaning once a week (at least!). Then we switched to a droppings board and I only need to change bedding under the droppings board every 2 or three weeks (I could probably get away with changing it every 4-6 weeks, but I'm a clean freak, so it gets changed regularly and not b/c it's wet, but because I can't stand to have lots of poop in the shavings!). We deep clean the coop twice a year. We just did our first deep cleaning this spring, which entailed removing the roosts and droppings board, dusting & washing down EVERYTHING inside. We just used water on the inside of the coop, but I used a weak bleach solution on the droppings board and roosts, which I could rinse well and leave out in the sun to dry. When they were dry, I white-washed them with a slurry of food-grade DE. I replace the hay in the nest boxes when I can see the bottom of the floor and they don't look comfy anymore.

Not much to it. I think it really depends on your personal preference for how clean you want it to be.

• #3

gryeyes

Covered in Pet Hair & Feathers

Full-blown clean? Never. Okay, twice a year. Haven't had my chickens more than 8 months yet, and only cleaned out the litter earlier this spring.

Every week, I rake up the biggest poops from the pine shavings (Deep Litter Method) into a bucket, toss that stuff into the composter. Every couple of weeks, I add more shavings. The chickens "stir" the bedding litter up themselves, so I don't even have to turn it. But I might, if I was feeling industrious at the time I raked out the poops.

I do add poultry dust occasionally, and toss some DE around, too.

I do more cleaning OUTSIDE of the coop than inside, as the chickens sun themselves on the low roof of one coop with its attached pen, and they poop all over it. The rooster uses that roof as his crowing station. He'll crow in other locations, but that's where he does the major wing-flapping, belting out the I'm The Biggest, Bestest Rooster In This Neighborhood crows. The girls get up there to look around, or perch on the edges of the roof, looking outward, so of course they poop on the roof.

And the run needs attention, too. But the coops? Far less than I thought they would!

(But maybe I'm a trashy, messy, hillbilly kinda gal who has lower standards for chicken coop cleanliness.)

Last edited: May 31, 2010

• Thread starter
• #4

Dec 15, 2009

2,476

12

196

Alaska

thanks for the responses would spruce sawdust work in my coop?

• #5

I scrape my dropping boards daily. I do minor wipe-downs and spray my dropping board off about once a month. I do a bedding toss/replacement 2x a year, later fall and early spring. The bedding hardly gets used during spring, summer, and fall, hence the late fall toss. But it gets a LOT of use during the winter months.

• #6

I have had my chickens for over a year and I haven't cleaned it yet and don't plan to for a while. I use the deep litter method so I just throw on another couple of inches of shavings every few weeks. No smell, no flies, no fuss, no muss. I stirred it up a shovel full the other day and it is composting nicely underneath.

I wouldn't use sawdust of any kind. Chickens are dusty enough, and the sawdust might cause them respiratory problems. I would use pine shavings.

UGCM

• Thread starter
• #7

Dec 15, 2009

2,476

12

196

Alaska

ok i wont use sawdust but what could i use i am out of hay just cleaned the coop and dont have enough hay to cover the floor

• #8

How big is the coop? Mine is 13 x 8 and it takes about three bales of pine shavings from Tractor Supply or the feed store to cover the floor about 3-4 inches deep, which is plenty to start with. The bales are $4 bucks or so here. I toss in another bale about every 4 weeks, even less as it builds up in depth. Pine shavings are better than hay, in my opinion. They are more absorbent, compost better and don't get matted with poop.

UGCM

Last edited: May 31, 2010

• Thread starter
• #9

Dec 15, 2009

2,476

12

196

Alaska

i dont now how big it is but i dont have acces to shavings for a while but i need to put somthing onthe ground inthe coop

• #10

I use pine shavings, I clean out my coops about every 1-2 weeks.

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How Often To Clean Out Chicken Coop

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