The chickens are staying inside most of the time. Should I clean the coup every few days or put straw over the chicken manure to help the coup stay warm.
Should I expect eggs all winter?
Gary
Chicken coup cleaning
Some people use a deep-litter method whereby they just spread more straw or woodchips and only clean out the coop once or twice a year. If you sprinkle some cracked corn or other feed on the floor the chickens should keep the bedding stirred up enough that you shouldn't have an ammonia odor or any obnoxious smells. Of course, that depends on how many chickens you're keeping in what sized area!
You should continue to get eggs if you give the chickens an extra source of light to extend their daylight hours, although the egg production usually drops. I think we try to supplement so that they're getting a total of 16 hours a day of light, combining natural and artificial.
Gary! Greenhouse always has great advice. Only thing I would add would be that deep litter done properly means you only have to clean the coop once every 1-two years. I know there are lots of opinions on this but I house between forty and seventy full sized birds in a 16 x 16 coop and clean it every two years. Most of my customers are in shock when they go into my coop. I use pine shavings and they are about two feet deep, this allows the girls to burrow for warmth, and they till the dropings into the shavings and that creates microbial bugs that they love to feed on. You can't see them of course as they are microbial. I never have any fecies to deal with. It is constantly being composted by the birds and their tilling or scratching action. My roosts are always folded up so they cannot roost in the day time. This keeps them on the floor to scratch. The proccess is gradual and works well. Good luck to you. Haystack.
good info for this new chicken keeper. Thanks
Does the deep liter need to be 2 ft deep or can it be just a foot deep?
Keep in mind that deep litter is a process. So it begin at about six inches, when It starts getting very soiled or stinky, instead of cleaning it out, you put down another four in" layer, and when that starts getting soiled, another layer, and so on. After it gets about 20-24 inches its being well composted continually and can be raked or fluffed by the keeper or the chickens themselves. Generally my chickens turn it. I may do it once every three or four months. I'm convinced from my own experience that it never needs cleaning but I remove some of it for my garden use and that makes room for new shavings. My coop at present time has had the same shaving for sixteen months and there is little to no odor, and I defy anyone to find feices in the coop. Once you see how it works you will love it. I hate work and thats why I love it.
I wanted to try it here.. I"m building the coop so i can.. but the only concern at the moment is stepping into the coop & stepping on a snake that's taken up residence in the deep litter... Ever had that happen?
My other coop i clean out as it needs it but that's bc its a wire floor (raised coop) & the poo falls thru. Won't make that mistake again tho bc the chickens toes get caught in the wire tripping them.
so another reason to go to washington.. to see Haystack's lovely chicken coop that smells so sweet.
Honey we don't have any snakes out here, I have seen one garden snake here in12 years and it was about eight inches long and big around as a pencil. Snakes??? Are you kidding me. LOL
Haystack, do your chickens also free range, or have an outside run, or do they just stay in their coop?
help this is not a chicken question but she has feathers and will lay an egg i dont know when. my son came home with a cockatiel think i spell it right. she is two years old how do i care for her? she like to bite but not hard they gave him food, cage, toys i never had a bird like that. so anyone know anything about them? if she were a chicken i would know oh do they talk, what do they like to eat?
Thank You for all the great advice. My coup will be the thick straw method.
Gary
I cleaned out my coop completely and added about 6-8 inches of pine bedding over that stuff you add to horse stalls to keep the ammonia odor down. I will keep adding more and more bedding as needed.
Question...how do you keep the pine bedding out of their metal water dish (I have the 5 gallon one that has a top but where the water comes out of gets filled with bedding. Plus I put the water dish in a larger pan to stop the ducks from dribbling everywhere and that doesn't help either)?...and same goes for the feeders (I can hang only one the other is trough). When they kick the bedding around its difficult to keep the waterer and feeders clear. Any suggestions?
This message was edited Oct 1, 2009 8:56 AM
We put the waterers up on concrete blocks so that they have to reach a little to get to it but it's still easily available. That keeps the water cleaner. You could do the same thing with the feeders.
We feed our chickens outside, anyway.
cooksterann, I don't know anything about other birds either. Why not post on the pet forum; I know someone there can help. It would also help to start a new thread to draw attention to your question.
I have cockatiels, they are very easy to keep. You just buy the cockatiel seed and give them water. Maybe a mineral wouldn't hurt either. They are lovely little birds. I like mine.
They like any foods you eat I've been told, except don't give them avocados or chocolate they are lethal to them.
Mine love popcorn and brown rice.
Oh, and they need to be kept warm in the winter. They chill easily. If you see them fluff their feathers up and shake you'll know. They do that when they have mites too.
That's about all I can think of for now. Enjoy.
The coop inside the old barn has a cement floor. Does that matter when it comes to using the deep litter composting method? So far we've just kept adding more straw on top of the old and the smell isn't bad but they have an outdoor exercise pen they stay in most of the time or out free ranging around the farm. Now with winter coming, I'm guessing they'll want to spend more time inside under the heat lamps where it's warm. Their outdoor run has a dirt floor. We've added sand around the edges for them to bathe in. For winter should we add a foot of straw or just leave it as it is? I doubt they will go outside the exercise pen when the snow is on the ground. Also, should we continue to feed them in the exercise pen (It has a lean-to roof over it) or move the feeder inside? Right now we hang their water feeder from a rope to keep it off the ground which works good. It's out in the exercise pen. I guess we'll have to move that inside so the water won't freeze or get a heated water container.
Personally I hate straw, it takes forever to break down. Therefore it's not great at composting. The cement floor is fine for deep litter, as long as you keep layering the shavings. during the winter when the girls spend more time indoors it will soil much faster. When you first began to smell the urine that is when you want to create another layer the layer can be only two or three inches, just make sure you have enough to do away with the urine smell. I have used straw and find it mates with the fecies and does not absorb the urine smell very well. To each his own and If your happy thats really all that matters. If you experience difficulty in keeping the waterer or feeder clean I use the horse bedding pellets in that area and it keeps the shavings out of both the waterer, and the feeder. Greenhouse mentioned putting the waterer and feeder up high, well thats a great idea and don't be afraid they won't get to it. Trust me they will and yes they will stretch to do so. Hay
I agree with hay on the straw,it does not absorb well,pine shavings are cheap and work well just make sure you get pine and not ceder if you decide to go this way.
Ok Green, I have to ask. Why not cedar?
There is something in ceder I think its oils or the smell in the ceder I can`t remember but its not good for there respirtory system.
I am going to put in shavings this year I don't like the straw.
Doesn't absorb anything. I can just dump in a bucket of shavings and good for another
few days.
I HAVE to clean out the chicken house this fall, we raised meat birds, and they
did terrible things inside the chicken house. It is just awful.
I have to get the ducks out too, we have a few runner ducks in with the baby Dominiques,
and they are so duck messy that it literally stinks in the matted straw in there. ugh.
My poor chickens. the ducks, 50 of them, go into the giant horse barn at night, god bless em,
and then they come out in the morning. I have only lost 2 this year, I don't know why, maybe
DH forgot to close up doors one night and a coon got in or something. I feel awful about it.
sher
Will old hay work for instead of straw for coop floors?
Thanks
Gary
Since we started with straw do I have to remove it or can I just dump wood shavings over the straw?
My 2 cents worth.. ok a penny:
I use straw.. (pftttt to Haystack, lol)
I just add to it every few months.. or when it rains too much and whats down is taking a long time to dry.. I announce to the girls it's time to clean their room.. I throw down fresh straw.. and they "clean" for days.. I normally do not feed on the ground.. but again.. if things are looking poorly, I add straw and feed on the ground..
I too have never worried about stepping in poo.. I'm not sure where it goes... I don't want to know either..
My girls are cleaner than the human kids ever were.
Hi Fran: I am convinced you are just to cute, and I don't want to cross you. I think your method is wonderful, especially if it works for you. To be sure there is more than one way to skin a cat. You got a good chuckle out me. I'm am a fan of your's and want to keep it that way. LOL...Haystack
your too good to me.. to bad we live on oppisite ends of the fence line.. I would love to be closer.
Garyt, sometimes I throw in dirty (not filthy) hay on top of my straw stuff, just to give the girls something to play around in and clean up.. I would not use a lot of it, nor by itself, again.. my opinion, but straw has a hollow shaft and is slick, water flows through it.. hay has neither and each shaft can get saturated.. leaving a wet "bed"
Again.. I write my own rules as I go along.. so if anyone would like to change my mind.. go ahead.. I will listen.
For my slobs of ducks, hay did not work well - soggy, smelly, flies... I changed to the pelleted bedding that Haystack mentioned, and even when wet, their pen doesn't smell. I just stir it up and add a little more on top, and they're set for another day.