An inspiringly clean chicken coop
The poop hammock at Michelle Tullis’ henhouse.
Here at Sunset, we solve the problem of the nightly droppings cascade by having a henhouse with an open-mesh bottom. The whole structure sits on stilts (high enough to prevent a hungry racoon from shooting an arm up through the mesh and grabbing a chicken leg), and the droppings fall through to a straw bed underneath…which we periodically rake out into our compost bin. It’s a little less work than emptying a hammock and seems to suit us and our chickens.
Michelle Tullis, the clean-coop owner, also elevates her feeder and waterer so that dust, dirt, and feathers don’t get mixed in. Admirable.
Our solution is to simply hang the feeder and the waterer from the top of the coop’s roof. It works, sorta. We still get a fair amount of dirt in the water, and twigs and such in the food. So I love the way Michelle has positioned rocks and pebbles around both—no way any chicken can kick up dirt from stone!—and we might do the same. She’s clearly spent some quality time watching her birds and analyzing their behavior.
Anything a chicken-owner can do to keep a coop clean is a good thing. It keeps both hens and humans healthy. And helps deter R-A-T-S.
great ideas thank you
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We use a 3 gallon bucket with the “nipple” style emitters. We hang the waterer, it never get s dirty and the birds took to it in minutes. Food also hangs.
What great ideas! We are building a new coop soon and I am looking for ideas like these to keep it cleaner and neater!
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I say… I hesitate a whole lot and never seem to get anything done.
Consider wearing a dust mask when cleaning the chicken coop.
Chookies can be so much fun all with their individual personalities – I often sit nearby and listen to them talking with each other. I think I’ve been hanging around them so long that I can almost understand the gist of what they’re talking about. I’m sure they’re having a good’ol gossip about Penelope who just walked off, or Pumpkin who is looking a bit featherless at present. I love my chooks. Great site this – thanks heaps
Love reading you posts and comments from other chicken farmers, I get so great ideas to improve my chicken house. I got my first 3 eggs today!!!!! My little ladies are starting to produce.
Chickens are interesting creatures, love to watch them sit in the yard and absorb the quirks each has, and each is so very different. I do have my favs. Plymouth Barred Rock, sweet talkative and gentle.Have also learned to love Buckeyes they are very curious. New for me this year.
Go on get a coop bulit and they are great gardening friends they can take weeds down faster than you can. Such good helpers.
I love my chickens and I am not near as tech as ya’ll seem to be. I enjoy reading this.
Hi, Please don’t laugh when you read this because i can tell you tears are fallling on my keyboard. I really wanted to have chickens here at our place. we live out in the country so no zoning restrictions or anything like that. I have been reading on how to clean the coops and othe info. Well I found a coop that needed a little work but that was no problem. There are 18 nest sites and being so excited to get the coop at a reasonable price I thought well i can clean everything up. So I started , well there was so much chicken poop in the nest and had turned to almost concrete so i tried to start digging. that didn’t work sop i brought the garden hose in and filled the nest with water, not know there was no drainagc holes in the nest. I didn’t give up though as I stired and scrapped and finally got the poop loose. Drilled some holes in the nests to let the water out but the poop was so thick it would not drain out. I didn’t give up though. I took a cup and started dipping, but could not get all of the water out. By this time, 4 hours later, I am beginning to give up . I am covered with chicken poop, my hands are brown from dipping out the poop as it seeped in my gloves, my fault when i started out i didn’t need rubber gloves but then encountered water nightmare.
Thank you for listening, i just needed to tell this to someone.
Mary
I’ve been raising chickens for over 30 years-I use a tire (rim still inside)to elevate & level waterer
I love this post. I am studying chicken keeping and it is on my list of things to do in the next year. I LOVE this lifestyle trend.