The trick to not having to clean chicken poop is simple. All you need to do is get a mobile chicken coop.

What is a mobile chicken coop? Basically, there are two principles when it comes to chicken waste. The first principle is to make every horizontal surface in your coop with hardware cloth or chicken wire. If you do this, the poop will simply fall on the ground.

The second principle then is to move the coop away from the poop that is now on the ground. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

There are a couple different ways to implement these two principles. One way is to use a chicken tractor. Typically these don’t have a floor at all, so the chickens just do their thing directly on the ground. This works really well for meat birds. It’s easy to put a lot of chickens in them and since they’re getting processed within 8 to 12 weeks (depending on the breed) you don’t really need to worry about pampering them.

However, laying hens are a little more complex. First of all, they need a place to lay their eggs. While chickens can and will lay directly on the ground if they have no other choice, they really need a dark, cozy and safe place that they can keep coming back to day after day. Also, since they will hopefully be around for a few years, they will need good shelter and protection.

The best mobile chicken coop out there is Justin Rhode’s ChickShaw:

It’s basically a box on wheels with roosts, egg boxes, and a handle on the other end that you use to pull it around the yard. Like a rickshaw, hence the name, it is an extremely efficient design for easily “transporting” your chickens where ever you want them to go.

The trick is to keep the waste from building up and needing to be cleaned. Even if it’s on the ground build up can still be a problem, so you need to be able to easily move the coop to a new spot every day or so. Piling waste in one spot is a hazard. Spreading waste around a yard or pasture is fertilizer.

Another really cool design was created and patented by Congressman Thomas Massie, that he calls the Clucks Capacitor:

It’s not really my style to get this techie with chicken coops, but I love Massie and if you can’t be on your property every day, this is a really nifty solution to keep the tractor moving while you’re saving the world in Washington D.C.

Getting a mobile chicken coop really is a game changer. Not only are you eliminating the worst chicken chore imaginable, you’re turning a waste product into an input that benefits the land. Once you go mobile, you will never go back.

Take my word for it. I started using these several years ago and I will never own another chicken coop that I can’t drag, roll, or push around the yard as often as I want.

I love them so much, I started building them for other people. I’ve sold several tractors and a few like this beauty, my own version of Justin Rhode’s Pretty Shaw:

More than one customer that bought one of these has come back asking for another one. My kind of compliment!

So, if you like the sound of a mobile chicken coop, and you never want to clean chicken poop ever again, give me a call. Every homestead is unique and I have never turned down a request for a custom modification. You can bring your own egg box, automatic door, or whatever you want.

Life is too short. Stop cleaning chicken poop!