A tip for getting coffee grounds. Ask your local coffee shop to save the grounds for you. I do this with my local Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. I purchased four 5gal buckets with lids and provided them to the businesses and I pick them up once a week.
Yes we have people come in and ask for the bag during the day and we even put some aside for people who say they'll come and pick it up. It's really heavy so we're happy someone can take it instead of us taking it to the garage. The bin is a genius idea and I'm sure my manager wouldn't mind us keeping one of two.
Be sure to get river sand and not regular sand. River sand doesn’t have a lot of dust, which makes it safe for your respiratory system and your chicken’s.
They also work for cat litter. They turn into sawdust when wet and the pellets stick together when they poop. And no urine or poop odors at all, all u smell is wood. They r awesome.
Your coop looks so great! My grandma used cedar shavings in her pen. She also used sturdy cedar sticks for them to roost on. Cedar keeps the chickens from mites and other bugs.
How in the world can anybody be upset about a clean chicken coop? This video is so satisfying and I love how you take good care of your chickens and their home! ❤️
If you had some sort of wood chips or deep bedding in the bottom area of your coop so your hens feet stay dry you will have less issues with sand. Also fo4 wood shavings to be really effective you need probably twice what you have in there because they stir through it all the time as well. I would highly recommend adding a removable board along the bottom of the door opening so you can keep bedding in place when you get eggs every day. That way your shavings can do what they are designed to do.
I use the spent coffee ground bedding and it's amazing! Zero smell (actually smells only like coffee) and scoops like cat litter. Only problem is I've only been able to find it during chick days at Rural King (the Spring) so you need to buy what you want for the year. However, it stores well, and you dont need to fully replace it as often. Hemp bedding is great too, but I found it to be expensive. It is great for deep litter method though.
Hey is good for nest bedding. And shavings are really good on the floor to help things stick to the ground less. And that is so great that you keep the coop that clean good for you 👍👍
Hi there one thing I have used in the past with chook coops instead of sawdust is fake Lawn grass. Fairly cheap to buy a role. Cut to size both for the nesting and rest areas. Having a collection means that you can swoop out and hosed/ brushed down during the weekly cleans and replace with the new ones. The old has time to dry before next time or can be put back once ready.
My friend started with six chickens several years ago and consistently used newspapers. They worked really well. And it's an ecologically sound resource
Try going to a local coffee shop and asking if they would be willing to donate or sell their used coffee grounds to you. Some Starbucks stores sell the used grounds and it also gives them an additional stream of income if they want to sell them…but hopefully they’d be willing to donate them. Worth a shot.
I seen a tip if you wanted to paint the screen black it looks more transparent but I don’t know what you’d do with the chickens while painting but I love it sm!
Coffee ground bedding seems to mold. The shavings can go into the compost bin and mix well with mulch for the landscaping. Some places sell straw mats that can be replaced or rinsed off
Honestly straw works just as well for bedding plus it’s genre cheaper, it provides better insulation and you can throw it directly into garden beds as mulch
You could use one of those horse stable forks that look like a rake, ive seen someone put chickenwire on it and then its perfect for scooping the poop and rocks from the sand
We use stall dry or Sweet PDZ as most know it. It’s great. I have 2 plastic trays that sit in the bottom of our coop and I just pull them out, dump them in the compost pile, scrape any residual stuff off, if they’re really dirty I’ll wash them but usually they’re fine. I general wash them about every 3 months not every coop cleaning. It’s really easy to use and I love that I can “scoop the poop” every day of I want and it stays cleaner and the stall dry lasts a lil longer.
The coop looks super clean, but honestly chickens might need more bedding than that. Especially in winter, but I'm sure you acclimatize them for that. I'm also never trying for super clean eggs either, I'm able to rinse them in water and keep them in the fridge. I know a lot of folks try and sell them though, so i could see cleaning paying off. It looks really pretty in there! Damn. We always had a dedicated pair of chicken house shoes, it looks like your wouldn't have to do that lol
Laying box bedding the optimum we found when I was a kid was literally sawdust. Check with some large animal supply stores and or if you have a place that does a lot of preconstruction of building elements or even a wood yard that saws their own construction lumber. You can usually find someone in your locale, If having problems look for homesteaders selling firewood or fresh cut lumber they end up having lots of saw dust.
Use hay in the nesting boxes and put some plants and grass were they walk around or just let then be free ranged when it's time to go to bed they automatically know where to go
I have sand in the run and coop, so nice! Your coop might be hard to do sand though, mine isn’t the easiest either because of the tiny door 🤦🏻♀️ Next coop will be so much better. Good job keeping your coop and run clean! People have no idea how important it is.
Grass or alfalfa hay for the coop - it easily and quickly biodegrades if they pull it out into the run (you can rake it up when you do the poop and compost it in the garden). Helps them stay warm in the winter. Nice material for laying eggs.
You have such a nice coop! This is just a tip, but I read somewhere that its best not to use beach type sand in your pen, because if a chicken eats sand and then drinks alot of water, what happens is similar to when you build sandcastles. the water gets the sand wet, it sticks together, and can get stuck in your chickens crop, which is NOT fun to deal with. This is just a tip I heard.
Straw/hay worked really well in nesting boxes for my 14 chickens. After switching from wood chips to hay, the hens formed them into nests and kept them way cleaner. Wood chips still worked way better under their roosting bars though.
Use sawdust for the roosting area and just seive it through a kittty litter poop scoop (or something similar) leaves the poop in the scoop and drop most of the sawdust back into the coop. I would do that in the bottom of you coop as well. I use the deep litter method, a trailer load of course wood mulch from your landscape supplies..., it easy and cheap and best of all you don't have to clean it AT ALL. I have 7 coops and its only the small ones (for the chicks) that don't have the mulch that I have to clean.
Try pelleted bedding. I use it in my budgie’s enclosure to catch any poo and water spills. It’s easier to maintain than shavings as it’s lower in dust and didn’t blow away at every opportunity. It will also break down quicker than shavings when composted due to the smaller fibers.
I made the bottom of my coop part of my barn have a sandy bottom so it's like a big litter box! All i do is rake up the the poop and ajust the sand. You can also use fine gravel as well
I got a 3'x10' strip of fluffy grass carpet. I cut 2 to fit each box, and when dirty, I replace, hose the dirty one, hang to dry, and it's ready to go. No cracked eggs from the girls who lay on the go, poop liquids go into the fibers, so the top stays dry, and it's pretty with eggs on them.
I pick up free coffee grounds from my local Starbucks weekly and my coop smells like Seattle before it turned to shit! It’s wonderful. Then chickens don’t mess with it at all. And there are no more flies which is also wonderful. Good luck chick! Love your coop!
You should try ground up walnut shells or cassava. It's used for organic cat litter and while I have never had chickens, I imagine it would work great! Only thing is the chickens may try to eat the walnut shells, unless you can get them ground super fine like the cassava is. If you want a reference for the materials, the cassava is sustainably yours cat litter a Jackson galaxy brand, and the walnut is Blue Buffalo brand called Naturally Fresh, although I'm sure there are many knock offs now. Obs you would need to find it in bulk ideally from a local processor for it to be affordable for chickens. If you are looking for a coffee ground base, have you spoken to the local private owned coffee shops in your area? Or maybe even a franchised Dunkin or Starbucks? They are usually happy to give garbage away as opposed to paying for it to be removed.
I personally use alfalfa. Especially if you can get fresh while it's still wet. They also eat it. So you don't take it out. It becomes part of the ground. I like the concept of using the hemp for the boxes. It's also a product that they can eat.
For bedding we use wood pellets they are used for horses usually but the work for us and you can also use ash from fires because it keeps the smell down
There’s certain companies you can get it from, they process it to essentially drain all the caffeine out and makes it the perfect (non toxic) Bedding for chickens. However, it can be really expensive and super hard to get a hold of if you don’t know where to look.
They have coop litter it’s like cat litter specifically for chicken coops and just like cat litter helps keep the poop dry for easy cleaning and they have kinds with scent to keep it from smelling
Hay is super dangerous when wet or soiled. It will grow aspergillus fungus, infecting chickens and people alike. Hay is meant for feed only. It does smell wonderful though.
If you have a sawmill within easy driving distance, you might want to experiment with sawdust. It is fairly fine and very absorbent. Easy to store, and is great to sift poop with a narrow-tined fork. Soft, aromatic, and never gets moldy. We use it in all our stable stalls.
I had a chicken tractor, and I put hardware cloth in the bottom of the hen house, so almost all of the poop fell through to the grass. Then, I just pushed the tractor forward a few feet to a new, clean spot each morning. Our whole yard got fertilized over the course of each season, and the chickens had fresh grass and bugs every day. I live in a very hot climate, so the extra air flow through the hen house was really needed.
After you clean it you should sprinkle some meal worms in the dirt for them. Just an idea for ya❤️ you can buy a bag of dried meal worms for $20 to $30 or buy live ones but the live ones will bury themselves and hide either way it’s a great nutritious snack for your chickens. My mom gives her chicken live meal worms. She breeds the meal worms for her chickens.
I really love the system where you give your fertilizer to your neighbors, as it seems you don't use it !!! I hope you can Trade them for some nice herbs or produce
I love having a sand base in our coop. They love it, too. I have been trying to buy coffee bedding for over a year! It's always sold out! I actually use shredded paper and toss it right into our compost. Love your coop.
Hemp bedding is the way to go. I am almost at a year now and it’s still in great shape. I skim the poop off where they perch and it drops so it’s easy with cat litter scooper to use.
You have a baby. Wash your crocks in disinfectant before you walk into the house (and your clothes in the laundry) each time after cleaning out the chicken coop. Salmonella is naturally occuring in the intestinal tract of 25% of all chickens. Their dried droppings are pulverized into the sand and the dust on your shoes and clothing is tracked into the house where your infant crawls and plays on the floor and still puts everything in his mouth. You can get a 5 gal bucket at Home Depot with a liquid-tight locking lid in the paint department. Mix up a solution household disinfectant that is labled for killing salmonella. Keep it in a handly place where you can dip your crocks after coop cleaning.
U can go to ur local sawmill & get loads of sawdust for bedding. It's less expensive than bagged shavings & it's more like kitty litter when it comes to cleaning- sorta like cawfee grounds.😊
Also stone dust works well for another layer above the sand & it drains well. U def need to encourage ppl to clean their coops a couple times a week as chickens stink to the high heavens & any parasite can ravage thru a whole flock very quickly. Also breathing issues are avoided by frequent regular cleaning.
I use topsoil. Add a new layer of topsoil (no perlite) to add ONTOP of the poop. Also in their nesting boxes. No smell and the shavings stink and just suck way worse. Top soil breaks it down super fast too.
Instead of shavings go for sawdust, it acts as a litter that is absorbent and easier to clean and to use as composte later. If you want coffee grounds though approach a mom and pop coffee shop and offer them some money for a 10 gallon container of grounds. you might also check any local eateries for this also especially small businesses that could benefit from an extra bit of cash. You might try some straw bedding for nesting boxes.
