Cleaning out the coop

Yea wow someone needs to send that show an email explaining the issues with what they are teaching our kiddos.

Dani4Hedgies said:

Yea wow someone needs to send that show an email explaining the issues with what they are teaching our kiddos.

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I don't think they really care… Or they would've done their research properly. But fear not, I don't think anyone's going to be that serious about coop cleaning after the first few days!

My flock likes digging around in the DL to find all of the goodies

CrealCritter said:

My coop has a cement floor. There was about 8" of deep bedding in there on top of the slab. We did run into a section that was frozen but it busted up easy enough with a pitch fork.

My first mistake as a newbie chicken guy was to put in a pipe with nipple waterers INSIDE the coop. Once I abandoned the inside nipple waterer for watering outside - things got a lot better. Ammonia smell is almost all gone now and humidity inside the coop is a lot better. It's taken almost 3 years to get the concrete slab dry... Chickens don't have cheeks and waste a lot of water when they try and drink from a over head nipple waterer. All that wet deep bedding was not a good combination at all.

I got the idea for inside nipple pipe waterer from BYC. Lots of positive talk about nipple waterers but no-one mentioned what a bad idea it is too have it inside the coop with deep bedding. Oh-well live and learn...

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Here I am piping in rainwater so as to get my DL good and wet! I used to have an intentionally leaky coop and, man, did it produce the compost, but ever since I got this new, bigger tarp, I've no way of getting good moisture into my DL and the composting is much too slow.

Now I'm dumping buckets of water in the DL under the roosts and setting up a rain catchment system in order to pipe it into that area.

Could be you are just using the wrong bedding~wood shavings and sawdust produce a LOT of ammonia when wet and decomposing and take a long time~ but the nipple system would have been alright with different bedding, especially if you located it back where the manure is most deposited. A flip of dry bedding on top of the moist each morning and you are golden. Ever since I switched from the wood shavings I've not had one whiff of ammonia in the coop.

Another option for keeping it dryer would be to use the cup nipples...not much mess at all with those.

Beekissed said:

Here I am piping in rainwater so as to get my DL good and wet! I used to have an intentionally leaky coop and, man, did it produce the compost, but ever since I got this new, bigger tarp, I've no way of getting good moisture into my DL and the composting is much too slow.

Now I'm dumping buckets of water in the DL under the roosts and setting up a rain catchment system in order to pipe it into that area.

Could be you are just using the wrong bedding~wood shavings and sawdust produce a LOT of ammonia when wet and decomposing and take a long time~ but the nipple system would have been alright with different bedding, especially if you located it back where the manure is most deposited. A flip of dry bedding on top of the moist each morning and you are golden. Ever since I switched from the wood shavings I've not had one whiff of ammonia in the coop.

Another option for keeping it dryer would be to use the cup nipples...not much mess at all with those.

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Wood shop saw dust and wood shaving and hay is all I have an abundance of for free. So it's wood shaving, saw dust and hay is what they get.

What kind of bedding do you use?

CrealCritter said:

Wood shop saw dust and wood shaving and hay is all I have an abundance of for free. So it's wood shaving, saw dust and hay is what they get.

What kind of bedding do you use?

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Mostly leaves, as those are free here. I gather many, many bags of leaves in our nearest town each fall, so I don't even have to rake and bag them. I have a few people I gather from and each of those old fellers bag up to 90 bags of leaves each season. The one mulches his first, which comes in handy for placing them in my mulch rings around the apple saplings.

I also mix in whatever else I have available~wood chips, a little hay, a dab of straw(I also get this free just by forking up what falls off the straw truck at my local feed store), twigs, and all the green matter I take out of the garden at the end of the season, lawn clippings from my son's lawn in town, any and all kitchen scraps that the dogs and chickens don't consume, and anything else that will compost.

Pics of some of the things that go into this coop and come out compost...








A general mix of materials allows more air into the mass and speeds composting...if you use all one material, with all one particle size, it slows composting down.







This is how hot that mass can get under the roosts if I get the moisture levels just right....it was around 20* this day of Dec. when I stuck this meat thermometer into the mass directly under the roosts. At roost level it's normally 10* warmer in the winter months than the outside temps. LOTS of large ventilation open at all times, particularly right next to this mass, to let fresh air in to carry the heat and moisture up past the birds and out the top.



This is what it looks like when it comes back OUT of the coop...light as a feather, no smell except of earthiness like good compost smells.


It makes it kind of fun to dispose of things in there and then receive garden goodness come spring and summer. I can mix this with potting mixes, side dress directly with it without fear of burning up my plants, and can even use it like a mulch for moisture control around the base of the plants.

Thank you for the compost info I have wondered about doing that in my coop for years but everything I read argued against it. I thought it would come out like yours is so good to know am planning this for this year.

Dani4Hedgies said:

Thank you for the compost info I have wondered about doing that in my coop for years but everything I read argued against it. I thought it would come out like yours is so good to know am planning this for this year.

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One thing to note....must have tons of ventilation, far beyond what is recommended per sq. footage. When asked, I always say plan huge ventilation that can be adjusted, on all levels of the coop.

During the warm months, the sides of the coop are wide open(tarps lifted like wings on either side of the coop), as is the front and back ventilation. In the colder months, half of the front door, front windows, the pop door under the roosts and also the back window is cracked open, as well as large cracks at all levels of the coop.

Also need good moisture in the mass(the greater concentration of DL under the roosts) in order for it to compost well. That goes against everything everyone will tell you to have in a coop, but with the right ventilation it all works out beautifully. The birds stay warm, it's a healthy microbial environment underfoot, compost is being produced and there are no smells nor flies all year round.

Mine got too wet in the last few days (more than 8 inches of rain in the last 2 weeks, and my coop is now wet, wet, wet...) Thanks for posting this @Beekissed! I was going to clean it out wet, but I'll go get something dry to mix in and keep it composting for a bit first!

People who advocate daily coop cleaning must be grossed out by animal poop. It is amusing to me when I let people and kids in the sheep lot to see the new lambs. Some gross out at sheep poop, others don't notice it at all. LOL