My husband says I am. I want to put in a cute garden shed and use it as a chicken coop. My plan was that if the chickens didn't work out, I could use it as an outdoor studio/guest room type of thing. Hubby says it'll smell like chickens and I won't be able to get all the dirt and poop out. I was thinking I could hose it all down, sweep it out, etc., have the walls finished, sheetrocked or whatever, take up the linoleum and put down good flooring and be good to go. He says I'm nuts to spend so much on a chicken coop that can never be used for anything else. What do you think?
Am I wrong?
Chickens are very messy and there will be lots of feathers and dust and Poop i have seen old chicken houses turned into flea markets before.
So i don't know i guess it depends on how messy the chickens are and if you want to put in the time cleaning it.
You could build a garden shed with and attached coop on the side of it and turn that into a potting shed if the chickens don't work out.
Then the garden shed would stay clean and you would only have the small coop to convert to .............?
I vote for the garden shed with attached coop. Maybe a portable coop that meshes with your intended guest space. Something you can move around a bit to keep the fowl happy. Having cooped chickens is a chore. You're not crazy (but perhaps nutz?). lol Beyond the fact that chickens are messy, they are domesticated animals and should not be given short shrift in their care.
Laurel
I think you might want to take a cue from the zoos and Las Vegas animal shows and order a bottle of OdorGone concentrate from CleanLifeTechnology.
OdorGone and KritterSpritz are the same product at different dilutions. The concentrate looks, smells and tastes like plain water, but don't let that fool you. I've used it to eliminate the smell of male cat urine, skunk, a sewer overflow in an RV etc. OdorGone is a solution of beneficial microbes. They eat up the organic material causing the odours and eliminates the smell (as opposed to masking the smell with fragrance).
If you spray the shed with this stuff you won't have to worry about chicken odour. The key is to get it into all the nooks and crannies. I have a friend who uses a black light to look for her pets "indiscretions" and sprays this on those areas.
http://www.cleanlifetech.com/odor_gone.htm
http://www.cleanlifetech.com/odor_gone_reports.htm
Another option is EM1. This is another great probiotic solution to use around livestock for good health and odour control.
Here is a link to using EM for livestock:
http://www.emamerica.com/livestock-and-odor-control
We use both of these products. I tend to use the EM for more outdoor uses in the garden and composting, and the OdorGone in the house. I do use EM in all the sink drains to keep them clear. I also used it to treat the walls and studs when we had a black water flood that required ripping the affected walls back to the studs. It's been three years since that incident and there have been no odours or mould problems with that room.
We adopted a very sweet but broken down cat with urinary problems, fractured pelvis, sciatica and spine issues. The structural issues made him stand crookedly when using the litter box, so he would pee down the inside of his leg and bloomers. I'd spray the affected area with OdorGone and the smells would lessen within minutes and be completely gone within an hour. He's healed up nicely so I can let him roam the house now. The back bedroom (his convalesence room) was sprayed with OdorGone and has no detectable scent of any animal in the room now, even when locked up on a hot day.
My friends use EM in the chickens' water, they mist the chickens with diluted EM and mists the bedding with it as well.
This message was edited Jul 2, 2009 6:26 PM
Chickens shouldn't smell at all if kept properly. Do you disagree? I've not kept fowl in years (ducks) but didn't object to the odor. On the other hand, indoor cats with peeing problems present gross odor issues.
"If I Could Put Time In A Bottle"
Our chickens and ducks never had any strong smells. I mentioned the cat odour situtation to illustrate the effectiveness of OdorGone. If Gwendalou's husband has a super sensitive nose, he might attribute *any* scent from the shed to "chicken odour".
Both these products are probiotics and healthy for the environment.
Maypop, I do agree. I've never been in a well-managed coop that I found objectionable. Which is why I think my plan would work! Hubby has never been in a coop in his life and so doesn't realize. He is already saying the kitchen smells. It smells like pine shavings!
Garden Mermaid, thanks for the info on those products. Are they considered organic? Is the EM okay to use in the sink if you're on septic. I have to resort to draino sometimes and I know that's horrid for a septic system. Cat urine is the worst! If it gets rid of that, that's high praise indeed.
Harmony and Maypop, I can't build a garden shed with attached coop because I'll go over the legal sf that I can build without a permit. I will have a portable coop in the front vegie garden. In the back, I want a large walk-in coop that I can partition off for storage, quarantining, breeding, etc. There will be a fairly large run all around this coop (which is fenced and would be a darling fenced garden should the chickens not work out), and that also opens to about an acre of fenced lawn and woodland where the chickens will 'free range.'
I want the large shed because I want the possibility to increase my flock. I figure I'm either gonna like this alot and want to increase the flock, or not like it at all and want to get rid of them and go with the studio/garden. If for some reason I like just having a few, I can get a smaller coop or just use the chicken tractor in the front garden. Trying to cover all my bases and all possibilities.
Btw, if you have just a few chickens in a tractor, don't they get too cold in the winter? We're zone 7 and get snow off and on during the winter with a lot of 32 and below days.
You are in the same zone as I am and I'd consider a movable coop with open time for your fowl. I've friends with chickens cooped in relatively large spaces who are having problems with feather plucking. Chickens, dogs, cats, or any other domesticated animal are not meant to live in a confined space. If you chose that method than you need to consider alternatives to that habitat.
Free range is just that. As I'm not doing chickens just now, I can only share experiences. I've got friends who let the chickens out with the dogs in the a.m. and in the coop they go at sunset. Sprinklers are set one hour after release to keep them from doing too much damage in the veggie garden.
Laurel
Maypop, I didn't mean leave them in the tractor 24/7! Just at night when they're roosting and sleeping. I'm not one for caging animals. I don't even like it that I have to keep the babies in their brooder right now til they're old enough to go outside and have some freedom.
Gwendalou, EM is OMRI certified for use on organic farms, and it's very good for septic tanks. The microbes eat up the residue that accumulates on the inside of the pipes.
I'm not sure that the makers of OdorGone/KritterSpritz have gone through the exense of getting their product certified as organic. You would need to call them and ask. They have a strong customer base because the product works so well. I learned about KritterSpritz from a woman that rescues wild, abandoned and abused horses. Some of them have come to her with really nasty skin problems and infections in their eyes, ears and noses. She sprays them down with KritterSpritz with amazing results. I then ordered the OdorGone concentrate to try it out. It's been a standard item in our house ever since.
I am one of those folks with a very sensitive nose. I like my home (and laundry) to smell fresh and clean rather than perfumed. We stay healthy by working with nature.