I use a leaf rake to "sweep" the ground under the hutches to collect up the "raisins" into a shovel that I can dump into the wheel barrow. Always before I would put straw down to hold everything in place until Saturday cleaning day. But after a few losses of rabbits to predators (roaming dogs), we moved the hutches into the chicken run for protection. That plan worked and the fence has kept our rabbits safe ever since. But the chickens went straight for the straw to scratch away under the hutches. So I stopped putting it down there. The chickens still like to scratch for worms under the hutches and now the ground is starting to erode away from being cleaned and scratched up. It didn't seem like a big deal at first but soon the "raisins" started filling up the little dips and valleys. Each cleaning would require more aggressive raking and scratching the dirt to get it all.
This is what it looks in one spot after the first initial sweep of the rake. Not good!
Not only does that increase the amount of time it takes to clean, it's almost impossible to get it clean enough to keep the flies away.
So I'm going to be searching for under hutch manure containment DIY projects today. I'm not a handy/dandy carpenter type of girl so I'll have to find plans with lots of pictures and step by step directions. And hopefully I'll be able to rig something up with materials we already have on hand. Trips for hardware supplies seldom go well for me. (For some odd reason salesmen in those stores expect you to know the proper name for the materials you're looking for!) I'll keep ya posted.
