Open Bottom Coop

JHitchcock

Chirping
11 Years
Jan 4, 2009
16
0
75
Hi all,
I am new to the forum and chickens... but keep parrots and finches. Im contemplating keeping a few chickens and I am considering various designs for my coop. I would only have 4 -6 chickens. For the coop however, I was thinking for the bottom instead of having a solid board, i would use hardwire mesh say .5" square, with a poop tray underneath that would slide out for easy cleaning and disposal of litter - of course the wire would get a scrape and clean every now and then... This way poops would just drop thru to the poop tray which would be add to ventilation because the tray would be underneath the coop and im hoping would simplify the process. would there be any problems with this?
 
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Wire is hard on chickens' feet and blocks their natural tendancy to scratch in the litter.

You don't say what climate you live in but in the north, the litter on the floor might be an important factor to their survival.

Wayne
 
This all depends upon your climate. We have always made our coops without a bottom. But, we live a very hot climate. We staple an old piece of fencing on the bottom of the elevated coop. This keeps preditors from getting them from below, but allows the poop to fall through.

That said, our chickens only use the coop to roost in. During the day they are running around the chicken yard.

Rufus
 
I live in Bermuda - so the climate is relatively mild - sub tropical, The weather RARELY goes below 60 in the coldest winter months. There are also no natural predators that would threaten the birds...
 
Supposing then that the birds would be spending the bulk of their day on the ground and not the wire, then you're really not doing much differently than those who build dropping pits under the roosts and closing it off with wire.

Never did it myself so can't say how 1/2" hardware cloth would work, whether poop whould fall through without building up unacceptably. Works ok for rabbits.

Wayne
 
yeah the birds would have their own separate run and retire to the coop at night or whenever. Come to think of it the mesh squares would probably need to be a bit larger to facilitate the poop falling through instead of collecting on the grate.
 
I am just starting to raise chickens and I have a completely enclosed run. I am thinking about a coop within the run that is completely open on the bottom, no wire mesh. I'm thinking that the completely enclosed run is the protection. This would allow me to simply rake whatever falls to the bottom of the coop from the outside. My thinking was that in nature, they simply roost up in trees. I am going to have an electric wire around the run, as our main predator in Southern California is the coyote.
 
I am just starting to raise chickens and I have a completely enclosed run. I am thinking about a coop within the run that is completely open on the bottom, no wire mesh. I'm thinking that the completely enclosed run is the protection. This would allow me to simply rake whatever falls to the bottom of the coop from the outside. My thinking was that in nature, they simply roost up in trees. I am going to have an electric wire around the run, as our main predator in Southern California is the coyote.
My coop has a dirt floor and it works great. But you need a wire skirt on the ground outside to stop predators who dig in from the outside. Including those that don’t dig but use another animal’s tunnels to gain access.
A hardware cloth skirt around the perimeter is not hard to do.
 
My coop has a dirt floor and it works great. But you need a wire skirt on the ground outside to stop predators who dig in from the outside. Including those that don’t dig but use another animal’s tunnels to gain access.
A hardware cloth skirt around the perimeter is not hard to do.
I'm thinking that the coop inside the completely enclosed run would have NO floor. In other words, the chickens would just walk underneath it and climb up into the roosting laying boxes and roosting bars. Any excrement would simply fall to the ground below where from time to time I could simply rake it from the ground. Their protection would not come from the coop inside, but from the completely enclosed run which will have both chicken wire and chain link fence and be enclosed ALL around. We have coyotes, fox, and a variety of snakes.
 
I have heard that snakes will eat something up to 2 to 3 times the size of their head. The snakes we have around here have pretty small heads. We have a variety of rattlesnake, but their heads are pretty small compared to other rattlesnakes I have seen in other parts of the country.
 

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