posted 4 years ago
Hello All,
At the macro level, what do you do to be as efficient as possible when keeping chickens? I am sure I'm not the only person who likes keeping chickens, but has limited time to take care of them. What do you do to make your chicken keeping chores efficient? (Feeding, Watering, Egg Collecting, Egg washing, Nest Box Cleaning, moving pens, Coop cleaning, etc)
At the specific level, I am looking for a way to be more efficient with my water system and the nesting boxes.
I have included a picture of my water system below. I used an old wheelbarrow frame to create it. I can now move it around much more easily than before. That saves times, but the insides still get gunked up far faster than I would like, and it takes far longer and is far harder to clean with all the small pipes than those traditional plastic waterers you get at Tractor Supply. Thoughts on a faster way to clean? Or a different setup so I can enjoy the cleanliness of poultry nipples, while still being able to keep it clean?
As for the nesting boxes, I have 6 of them, and every couple days I add some clean bedding. They kick straw out too quickly, so I am using wood shavings. The chickens don't sleep in them too much, but when it rains they do leak, so it will get damp and things clump at the bottom on one side. Then every couple weeks I have to take a scraper, scrape out every nesting box individually, then re-apply some DE to ward off mites, and re-apply the bedding. Thoughts on making this more efficient? I thought about maybe some sort of removable bottom panel, but maybe there is a better and more simple answer.
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