Chicken coop roosts: are your chickens getting the best? Painting the plywood may extend its life a little longer. I clean my coop once a day and put in new sand twice a year. The short answer is no, not in some locations. Does your chicken coop need to be off the ground? Check the best heat lamp for chickens, chicken coop heater, and chicken heating pad below which will help you keep your flocks warm and healthy in winter. Check out my free training video, Chicken coops 101: Designing your chickens' dream home. If you do an annual deep clean, you may be spraying a lot of water and disinfectant on your wood floor. Damerow gives these instructions for building a wire floor: Step 1 Use a wooden framework for the floor, Step 2 Consider making the framework in small, removable sections, Step 4 For cleaning, remove the sections and spray them down with a pressure washer. On top of that goes bedding.To pick out the right bedding you have to understand what it does, so first I’ll explain its purpose, and then list some of the options. Some chicken keepers have put brooder heaters on the material to help it dry more quickly. 5. Linoleum is a floor covering made from materials such as solidified linseed oil (linoxyn), pine rosin, ground cork dust, wood flour, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a burlap or canvas backing. You can use leaves, straw, or wood shavings, but most chicken keepers use wood shavings. Also, if you live in the suburbs, it should be gorgeous enough to keep your uptight neighbors from deciding … Continue reading "The Ideal Roof for a Chicken Coop." Many people use metal sheets for chicken coop roofing. The deep litter method is one sustainable method of managing chicken litter in the chicken coop that many small farmers use. Many of these materials have baked-enamel coatings to help with durability. This all sounds good in theory, but do a quick search of ‘wire floors’ in chicken-keeping forums and you will find that most people who have wire floors dislike them. As Gail Damerow says in her bestselling book, The Chicken Health Handbook: “…vinyl (PVC) is often passed off as linoleum. For more information, check out my article, Does your chicken coop need a floor? And don't seal up the coop completely. IMPORTANT: Many vinyl flooring materials are TOXIC for Chickens!!! In the warm months, you can hose it off, or, even better, spray it with a pressure washer. The temperature may be higher due to the body heat released by your chickens in the coop. The large rolls of linoleum or vinyl are better than the tiles. However, if there are any gaps between your coop and the concrete pad, you will need to fill them with sturdy material. Check out the photo below to see how poorly this material fared on one of these coops after being outside for just one year. If you do use this material in your coop, I highly recommend covering it with a thick layer of bedding. When you pour the concrete, both the trenches and the pad will be filled. One of my chicken coops has wooden boards as a floor, and the floor is definitely harder to clean. Good chicken coop flooring is safe, predator- and rodent-proof, durable, and easy to clean. Difficult to clean – droppings and bedding get stuck in between and under the boards, If spacing is too wide, predators can get in. You should never use chicken wire for a coop floor. Just because you are recycling materials doesn’t mean that those materials and structures need to be untidy. A chicken coop should be located where drainage is good and not around wet or problem areas of your garden. If you live in a warm and humid climate, for example, you may find metal sheeting (with no plywood base) to be a great chicken coop roof. Although vinyl and linoleum can be durable and prevent wood rot, there seems to be a very wide range in quality and price. As I mentioned before, if you use a good thick layer of bedding, you don’t really need any additional liners. SIZE MATTERS. For more information on how to figure out the correct pitch for your chicken coop roof, see my article, Chicken coop roof pitch: How to determine the right slope. This will help soak up droppings and is naturally pest repellent. Predators can easily reach through chain link fence and grab a chicken. If your chickens’ feathers get wet, they won’t be able to stay warm, and they will be much more susceptible to illness and premature death. However, if you live in an area that gets cold, the temperature and humidity levels in your coop may exceed those outside of your coop. After figuring out what material you need to build your chicken coop roof, you’ll need to determine the slope of your roof. Building your own chicken coop is worth the venture regardless of whether you’ve ever raised chickens before or not. PVC sheets and polycarbonate sheets are the most common. And you want a roof that’s built at a steep enough angle (pitch) that rain and snow will slide off of it. The concrete trench provides a barrier. Also, if you have a well-insulated coop and a fair number of birds, then they will keep the coop warm with body heat all on their own. They tuck their head under a wing. This way your chickens won’t get direct exposure. So you don’t want it too far from your home. If you're confused about what type of roost is best for your flock, it's not surprising. One of each covers my 8' x 10' coop when I clean it out completely. The only other way to prevent condensation is to have an extreme amount of ventilation in your coop, which will inevitably lead to a very cold chicken coop. You can only put food that can be planted in the ground into the feeder. A coop name sign, cute colour scheme and some hanging herb pots make Nicole's Penthouse Coop and run a lovely hen home! Some chicken keepers have even reported that their chickens have gotten their toes stuck in the wire and have broken their toe bones trying to get away. In the love letter above from Erica to her concrete chicken coop floors, she says she loves that the concrete keeps the rats out of her coop. Then you can sweep or rake out the droppings from beneath the wire floor. Painted wood or plywood has all the pros of wood floors, and one additional pro. Exposed plywood roofs will eventually warp and buckle from the effects of the moisture. QL must be greater than or equal to 10 to load a chicken. Below is a YouTube video that shows a concrete area being removed, and hundreds of rats are found underneath it. Choosing the right floor for your chicken coop is incredibly important for your chickens’ health and happiness, and for your sanity. They may also be used on other wooden (non-plywood) floors. The roof was only the very beginning of the coop’s problems. The same will be true for your chickens. I highly recommend using a staple gun to staple the linoleum or vinyl down, rather than glue. Your coops will sit flush against the concrete floor. You definitely don’t want your chickens living on a wire floor in cold or wet weather. You stay so nice and dry3. Essential Needs to Consider when Building a Chicken Coop Chickens need to stay out of the wind and drafts in winter in order to maintain their body temperature They need a wide perch so they can cover their feet with their body at night when roosting to keep their feet warm and prevent frostbitten toes. Here are her step-by-step instructions: Step 1 Mix dry cement with rock-free or sifted soil in a 1:3 ratio, Step 2 Apply the mixture on a dirt ground, Step 3 Spread the mixture across your dirt surface, making sure it is 4-6 inches (10-15 cm) thick everywhere, Step 5 Tamp the area down until it’s smooth, Step 6 Add water to the new floor and mix lightly. For a lesson on how to install corrugated metal roofing, check out this article. When it comes to materials for chicken coop roofs, there are so many options! However, if you are using bedding in your chicken coop, which is highly recommended in most cases, you really don’t need this extra step. So we have established that the chicken coop does not have to be fancy. The photos below show this wooden floor post-pressure washer cleaning. The coop is an important part of your plan to keep your birds safe from predators that lurk in the night. The site should be dry, sheltered, and kept clean. You’ll definitely want to take a close look at the ingredients. You'll need to decide upon the size, security, run and price. What is the difference between linoleum and vinyl? Many common glues are also toxic for chickens. With a such a huge task like this, it’s easy to get overwhelmed – especially after you realize that your new feathered friends … To learn what type of bedding will work best for you, check out these resources: Sand for chicken coop bedding: Pros, cons, and how to do it right, Straw for chicken coop bedding: Pros, cons, and how to do it right, A comparison of 21+ chicken coop bedding materials: The good, the bad, and the ugly, The BEST chicken coop bedding: Sand vs. straw vs. pine shavings. One of the main reasons (if not the main reason) chicken keepers consider wire chicken coop floors is because the chicken droppings should supposedly drop through the wire onto the ground. This post contains affiliate links for my favorite products from Amazon and Rita Marie’s Chicken Coops. If you want to pour a concrete slab, but you are totally clueless on how to do this, check out the YouTube video below: I’ll end this section with a love letter from a chicken keeper to her concrete floor. Many low-cost chicken coops, like the type you find in Walmart or on Amazon.com, use roll-on asphalt roofing material on top of wood. Most chicken keepers who have concrete love their concrete. The pros and cons of using the 8 most common chicken coop flooring materials, Solutions to many of the cons associated with flooring materials, Which flooring materials are safe and which ones you should avoid, Which flooring material is right for your coop. Heat lamps are the worst The inexpensive, 250-watt infrared heat bulbs you'll find in any feed store or retail outlet are super dangerous. Chicken keepers claim it lasts pretty much forever. Reasons not to put food and water in the chicken coop: Water in the coop causes damp, mould and fungi like aspergillosis. What is the best chicken coop roofing material? The BEST luxury coop you’ll ever buy: Spoil your chickens with Rita Marie's, Chicken coop ventilation: 21 design ideas with pictures. The recommended space that you should allow for each chicken varies depending on how much time they will spend in the coop. Spring is a great time to completely close off access to your chicken run and relocate chickens during the daylight hours (free-range your chickens or place them in a tractor to till garden beds). Step 4 Repeat above steps as needed until your entire floor is covered, Step 5 Make sure to seal the seam at all walls. After you’ve decided what chicken coop floor is best for you and your chickens, you’ll need to decide what bedding to use. Use linoleum rather than vinyl if possible (vinyl is toxic), Use staples rather than glue if possible (glue may be toxic), Use sheet flooring rather than tiles (tiles won’t last), You get what you pay for (cheaper varieties are not durable). Pressure-treated pinewood is used for any leg or runner that touches the ground, making these coops ultra-durable! All of my other chicken coops were built with eaves that extend 1-2 feet. Chickens should have to stretch up just a little to reach the metal valve of the nipple, without jumping. This way, your chickens can still engage in their favorite social ritual – and get themselves clean! Check out Chicken Coops 101: Designing Your Chickens’ Dream Home! You keep the f%&!king rats out.Love,Erica. The coops are all built on legs or runners, so your floor doesn’t touch the ground. Paint can go far in protecting your wood floor, but you want to be careful it doesn’t start peeling or your chickens will devour it. So what will happen to your chickens in these cases? Besides, you still have to be put together for assembly. You’ll definitely want to use roofing screws. If you don’t stir it well enough, it will crack, stay too soft, and peel. Farmers solved this problem by adding more litter on top of old litter in a strategy called the deep-litter or composting-litter method. They huddle together for warmth. After all, you’re the one who has to build, clean, and maintain it. I put this video presentation together to teach you exactly what you need to consider when buying or building your first chicken coop. Polycarbonate is more durable and, therefore, has a much longer lifetime. I had no rugs or furniture yet, so I had to sit and otherwise live on the concrete for the first couple of weeks. I know I have certain days when I would be very content to just sit, read and eat. Concrete is a very safe flooring choice as it keeps burrowing predators out. 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