That’s what Michael always said when we were dealing with a really poopy diaper back in the diaper days and it’s my first thought when I step into the chicken coop in the morning.
I love to talk about all of the lovely reasons to raise chickens… the eggs, the colors, the educational benefits, the pest control, the fluffy beautiful fun. There is another side to this business though and to be fair and transparent the time has come for me to hit that too.
There is a LOT of poop.
Here we go… this is from one night in the coop and it’s just one side of the room. This is a lot of poop to clean up.
We use this handy dandy scraper. It’s located in a tricky spot, over to the right where I can’t quite reach without leaning into the perch but I manage when I have to. Truth be told, Michael does most of the scraping. I fill in when he’s not able to which was the case yesterday morning because he wasn’t feeling well. So, I finally got these chicken poop photos I’ve been meaning to take.
I’m a pretty spoiled chicken mama and Michael is a very dedicated chicken dad so it all works out.
This is what one morning’s poop removal looks like.
We scrape it up every day first thing. I know that not everyone does it this way, you can wait and add hay on top then clean it out less often but we’re kind of daily chicken coop cleaners. About once every four to six weeks we (I use the word “we” very loosely here) do a more thorough cleaning and remove the old hay and put fresh down.
The daily poop goes out to the compost piles down in the woods to break down. We add it to the garden as compost after a year or so.
It’s one of the best composts ever!
Guess I’m right back to the good reasons to keep chickens!
poop-poop-e-doop!
Have a great day!
Michele
The Salem Garden 