Posted by Fi and Steve on September 14, 2009 at 9:54pm
Hi Chickeners,what are your thoughts on this,we are on a lifestyle block,so we are building a large coop with 6 nest boxes,enough eggs we hope for a large family and eggs to trade.I want to use the poo for the garden so i want to make it an easy job to get it out of the coop,and keep the coop clean,so i want to get the floor right .Looking forward to your thoughts,Fi from Waiheke.
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Hi pine needles are free and they make a wonderful natural pesticide base for the litter.We have concrete then pine then pine shavings.I remove the poo in the morning when i feed them[which falls onto some trays with pine shavings on it] and put straight into the compost.I also grow heaps of lavander to scatter in the coup.
A bit late, but I've only joined ooooby recently. We've had chooks for years on our lifestyle block and remade our coop a few years ago. We use the deep litter system too and it works great (particularily because I'm a bit of a lazy cook mama). I put at least a hands width of sawdust on the floor and the same again in the nesting boxes. That way when I get the eggs each day, I can flick the poo into the floor of the coop as our girls like to sleep in the nesting boxes too. We've tried to sop them from sleeping in them, but I was late getting out to the coop a couple of mornings and the cooks were in a tizz becuase they were desperate to lay. Now I just let them sleep in there and deal with it.
I got a lot of my chook tips from Storeys Guide to Raising Chickens - it's a great resource and covers everything you need to know.
Sarah, about the pine needles, if you want to put your litter into the garden when you clean out your coop, I'd go for sawdust, it breaks down easily and makes a great compost. I think that pine needles are too acidic for anything except growing strawberries.
hi we have six chooks with a long run and a large coop (pics on my page)coop is just a large box with the bottom at waist hight.i enitialy made six nest boxes-one each with two roost poles made out of tree branches 5cm thick.half the chickens roost up high on the poles the other 3 perch on the edge of the boxes and they all poop on every thing. apart from one box that they all use to lay in. once a week i just lift the back and scrape it all out into a plastic bin and drag it down to the compost, then throw in some clean saw dust -jobs done.
For easier deep litter removal I just made a section of one wall removeable. Two screws and a 150mm-high piece of ply comes off, a hatch right at the bottom of the wall, so we can scoop out the litter. I imagine we won't be doing this very often. I also wanted to make sure this hatch didn't leak rainwater inside, so I glued a wooden bar like a 'flashing' in plumber's terms to the bottom of the wall so water ran down the wall, over the bar and past the join, not into the join.
Hi, we're just about to start ... we have the coop and just need to get some chooks to move in, probably 4. Our floor is grass at the moment and I've put pine needles down on the floor. Anyone used pine needles before, or know if there's a reason I shouldn't? Cheers!
We haven't started yet, either, and there are SO many different approaches, I haven't decided which way to go yet. But a good friend who does well with her chooks has strongly recommended a deep litter system. I had heard from her and read elsewhere that you never have to do a full clean. You start with a dirt floor and about 25cm (?) of sawdust, which you sprinkle with bird seed & rake over the first few days to encourage them to scratch in it. Then, I think, you keep adding extra stuff onto the floor (straw etc). Eventually, from all the scratching, poo etc, it becomes this rich source of "garden food" with all the right levels of stuff (and the system is very resistant to disease?). I think every 6 months or something (?? see I don't really have a clue fully LOL) you shovel out the stuff on top, leaving about 25cm to start again. Yeah, I have lots to learn but basically, I think it sounds like a good system. I like the sound of Brian Adam's deep litter system, where the back wall section can lift up, to shovel the top stuff out when it's time. Have I understood this correctly, Brian? It sounds like the back wall section has a hinged bottom half that can lift up???
...my parents have chooks who do this and my dad trains them not to by going out at night when they are sleepy and easy to pick up, and puts them on their perch. they stay there for the rest of the night. you do have to be consistent about doing it for quite a while though i think before they get the idea.
Jamie said:
Hi Fiona, my girls determinedly use nesting boxes as sleeping quarters as well, and it is amazing how much they 'poo' in the night. I have resorted to laying paper on the floor of house and nesting boxes and covering with straw. With gloves I remove large piles daily into chicken shit container to mature for later use on garden.-and then periodically roll the whole lot up in the paper and transfer to the garden or compost. So a bit labour intensive
Again, IANACE (I am not a chicken expert) but our chook supplier said they would do exactly that.
His instructions are to block off the nesting boxes so they have to use only the coop with a roost and the run until they start to lay.
Then take egg and chicken and put both in the nesting box. Doesn't matter if they don't stay there. Just associate them with egg and box.
Keep the nesting boxes covered at night so they can't get in and keep putting eggs and chooks in the nesting box till you start finding the eggs there of their own accord.
Only then can you leave the nesting boxes open.
Might be a bit late, but it can't hurt to try to retrain them.
Dear Fiona,
I have 9 chickens and my husband has built "the Taj" This is a chicken Coop on stilts it has a trap door to empty the sawdust & poo through the trap door into a wheelbarrow. What I have found though is the added feature that I asked for....that is a removable rear to the Taj ... I can pick up the poo with gloved hands and the sawdust at waist level and the sawdust lasts longer. The chicken poo can then age.... In relation to the floor I have an extensiove scratching floor I don't like concrete.
Replies
A bit late, but I've only joined ooooby recently. We've had chooks for years on our lifestyle block and remade our coop a few years ago. We use the deep litter system too and it works great (particularily because I'm a bit of a lazy cook mama). I put at least a hands width of sawdust on the floor and the same again in the nesting boxes. That way when I get the eggs each day, I can flick the poo into the floor of the coop as our girls like to sleep in the nesting boxes too. We've tried to sop them from sleeping in them, but I was late getting out to the coop a couple of mornings and the cooks were in a tizz becuase they were desperate to lay. Now I just let them sleep in there and deal with it.
I got a lot of my chook tips from Storeys Guide to Raising Chickens - it's a great resource and covers everything you need to know.
http://www.fishpond.co.nz/Books/Nonfiction/Technology/Agriculture/G...
Sarah, about the pine needles, if you want to put your litter into the garden when you clean out your coop, I'd go for sawdust, it breaks down easily and makes a great compost. I think that pine needles are too acidic for anything except growing strawberries.
DSCF5980.JPG
Jamie said:
His instructions are to block off the nesting boxes so they have to use only the coop with a roost and the run until they start to lay.
Then take egg and chicken and put both in the nesting box. Doesn't matter if they don't stay there. Just associate them with egg and box.
Keep the nesting boxes covered at night so they can't get in and keep putting eggs and chooks in the nesting box till you start finding the eggs there of their own accord.
Only then can you leave the nesting boxes open.
Might be a bit late, but it can't hurt to try to retrain them.
I have 9 chickens and my husband has built "the Taj" This is a chicken Coop on stilts it has a trap door to empty the sawdust & poo through the trap door into a wheelbarrow. What I have found though is the added feature that I asked for....that is a removable rear to the Taj ... I can pick up the poo with gloved hands and the sawdust at waist level and the sawdust lasts longer. The chicken poo can then age.... In relation to the floor I have an extensiove scratching floor I don't like concrete.
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