When you try to raise backyard chickens, one of the things that you would have to come face to face with is cleaning the chicken coop.
You would, unfortunately, realize that chickens would make a lot of mess, and it is on you to be able to clean them and ensure that they would be healthy.
This is because if you do not put the effort in cleaning your coop you would risk these things happening: The first Is that your chickens would become unhealthy, sickly, and may even die because of all the bacteria and viruses that can accumulate in dirty places.
What’s worse is that these bacteria and viruses may actually cause diseases in your household as well. Another issue that you would have to contend with would be the stench of the poorly cleaned coop.
All of these negative effects may combine and lead to your family and your neighbors asking you to stop raising backyard chickens. As you can see, cleaning your coop is really very important.
One of the ways that you would be able to lessen the burden of cleaning your chicken coop would be to integrate the cleaning ideas in the design of the chicken coop itself. If you would be able to consider cleaning before you put up the chicken coop, you may be able to make changes that make it easier for you to do the task.
Some cleaning based design would be:
Installing Dropping boards under the perches:
A dropping board is basically a piece of wood that you place under the purchase.
It serves the purpose of catching all of the droppings of your chicken.
By having a dropping board, it would be easy for you to clean chicken droppings as you would just have to slide the board out.
Drainage Areas:
When it comes to cleaning the chicken coops used for backyard chickens, you would inevitably need to wash the whole thing down.
This is because there are some dirt areas that can’t be cleaned by simple wiping and sweeping.
You may want to include drainpipes or at least slopes that can push the water out so that cleaning and drying the coop would become less of a hassle.
Space for you to move around:
Lastly, cleaning a chicken coop would definitely be easier if you had designed it to fit a human being.
If you have easy access to the different compartments inside your chicken coop, then you would be able to have an easier time when cleaning it.
Yes, these cleaning tips would mean that you would need to add extra effort at the start when you are designing and building your coop.
But by doing this, you are making it much easier for you to raise backyard chickens in the future.
Shannon Stansberry has been engaged in the business of raising chickens for more than 12 years. In 2016, she accomplished the Agriculture & Natural Resources program at Mt. San Antonio College. At present, she tends to more than 80 chickens on her 4-hectare farm. Shannon regularly shares her insights and experience on how to raise healthy and contented chickens on the platform Typesofchickens.com
