The Best Floor for a Chicken Coop

When we built our chicken coop into a corner of our barn, we considered digging out the dirt floor and pouring a concrete slab. Concrete is the most expensive floor option for a coop. But concrete is the best floor for a chicken coop. It absolutely prevents rodents and predators from digging in, offers no place for lice and mites to hide, and is the easiest type of floor to clean and sanitize. The chickens would be comfy and cozy with 4 to 6 inches of shavings or wood pellets on top. That would have been our ideal coop floor, but alas, our funds were stretched thin at the time.

Wood Flooring

We discussed and quickly rejected the idea of a wood floor, which is the most common type of flooring used in chicken coops. A well constructed wood floor effectively excludes rodents and predators, especially if it’s at least one foot above ground level to discourage wildlife from taking up residence underneath.

But a wood floor is hard to clean. And, no matter how tight the planks are, the cracks between them invariably get packed with filth and bugs. Laying linoleum over the wood makes it easier to clean and sanitize. Nevertheless, even exterior grade plywood eventually rots. Another consideration for us was that a wood floor plus shavings would have raised the floor too close to the ceiling for human comfort.

Batten & Wire

In a chicken coop I had earlier, the floor was constructed of removable batten and chicken wire sections that easily could be lifted to clean the accumulated droppings underneath. My husband and I discussed going back to that option, but it did have a few drawbacks.

Although the battens (evenly spaced narrow strips of wood) made the floor comfortable for the chickens’ feet, and strong enough for humans to walk on, they accumulated droppings that had to be periodically scraped off. In the spaces between the battens, chicken wire allowed some droppings to fall through, while keeping chickens from walking and pecking in them.

However, when our hens hatched chicks, we were constantly retrieving the babies from the droppings pit below. Hardware cloth would keep the chicks from falling through, but big chicken poops tend to accumulate on top of hardware cloth. My husband vetoed that idea, and I seconded the motion.

Dirt Floor

We settled on plain old dirt, because it was already there, making it the cheapest and easiest option. Burrowing predators would be discouraged by the concrete sidewalk surrounding the barn. So we leveled the soil, pounded it smooth with a dirt tamper, and added a thick layer of shavings.

What we didn’t count on was that, in taking dust baths in the shavings, the chickens created ever deepening holes in the dirt. An uneven floor isn’t the easiest thing to walk on, let alone muck out. And we had to relevel the floor every time we cleaned out the shavings, which got old pretty fast. Plus, the worst hole was always right in front of the people doorway. Every time I went into the coop I was never quite sure how far down my foot would land.

Rubber Mats

Eventually we got the bright idea to level the floor once again — this time using fine gravel our local quarry calls “screenings” to establish a solid base — and cover it with heavy rubber mats, of the sort used in horse stalls. If we needed to be concerned about rodents or predators burrowing up under the mats, we would have laid hardware cloth on top of the gravel and fastened it to the walls before laying down the mats. Some of the mats had to be cut to make a good tight fit, which is easily doable with a sharp utility knife.

We are well pleased with stall mats as a coop flooring option. Shavings on top of the mats don’t absorb moisture as readily as shavings over dirt, therefore needn’t be replaced as often. So, in the long run, the cost of the mats is offset by the savings on shavings. Soiled shavings, mostly beneath the perches, are easy to scoop off the mats with a coal shovel or a snow shovel.

The chickens still enjoy dust bathing in the shavings. But they can no longer dig holes in the floor, making it much more pleasant for humans to walk on. Yet, to this day I find myself gingerly entering the coop, still expecting the first step to be a doozy.