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I was able to get a couple of bags raked up and down in the run before our first snow occurred yesterday. I have no desire to slip slide my way around chasing after birds that don't have better sense than to run around outside at sunset. My big discovery was that I need to rake up about ten more...

I wish! I think most of the people in our nearest small town burn all their leaves in barrels. Quite legal in Missouri. I don't think I'fe seen a yard barge bag or a trash bag full of leaves at the curb all fall. As we have 20+ acres of timber, oak, hickory and walnut, all I have to do is...

Beekissed, I am really impressed by your DL set up. Your flock looks like they are really doing their job, digging around all that compost for you. I've been busily gathering leaves and stuffing them into bags for use over the winter months. We had high winds here over the last two weeks that...

I do have some cross air circulation going. There is a small window on the south side of the coop along with the pop door. There is also a small 8X8 in vent over the pop door. I'm probably going to loose the window at night over the winter months as it is by the roosts. I will probably also...

We live with timber around us on all 4 sides so we are never at a shortage when it comes to leaves, especially with fall around the corner. Hopefully I can gather up a few bags full and add them to the bedding and store bags to last over the winter months. mixed with the pine chips should give...

Thanks Beekissed. So basically in trying to duplicate the action the hens used in the old coop, namely, churning things up, I've managed to interrupt the decaying progression of the deeper bedding. Well, darn. That would explain why I am getting the ammonia smell when I fork through the...

Until now I have had fairly good luck with pine chips. Plenty of break down. I generally clean twice a year. Spring and Fall. The composted bedding goes directly from the coop to the manure spreader and my husband immediately is out applying it to the pastures. That stuff is black gold. Our...

Cutting holes in the exterior walls pretty much out of the question, but I can add a hardware cloth screen to the door. The north wall to the coop divides the shed in half. The back half is the chicken coop, the front half is an overhang with storage space. My venting is in the area of the wall...

Hi guys! This summer I moved my flock to a roomy 9X12 coop with a concrete floor. Once again I am using the deep liter method that I used with my smaller coop but in spite of regular turning and the hens digging around, I'm getting ammonia smell coming up from under the roosts. I do not use a...

I wish I could do it that way but unfortunately we have at least 3 families of hawks nesting in the timber that surrounds our house. We can only let the girls out occasionally and under strict observation. This spring we found several areas of evidence that hawks had preyed on migrating birds...

Over the winter months I added steadily to the pine chips in our coop and brome hay was laid in the run to try to control the mud and keep the chickens feet off the cold ground. In March I did spring cleaning, emptying out the chips in the coop, raking up the 8 inches of hay from their run and...

Magic chicken, I agree with you, 100%. DH and I were married in Casa Grande and have friends there. There just ain't no such thing as yard clippings there where you are. I do have a suggestion for you though. Straw. Bales of both straw and hay should be available for you to purchase. I know...

My run is 90% open and netted kennel panel constructed. 10% under Our barn roof to give the birds protection from the elements and yes, we can have some pretty harsh winters in Missouri. What prompted me to start moving my litter from coop to run floor was watching our hens and roosters during...

Beekissed, you are describing our soil here precisely. The soil quality where my orchard and garden are is much higher than the general soil in the yard and around the house simply because once upon a time there was a corral there. The first 4-5 inches is nice topsoil thanks to the leavings the...

Kekstrom, it does work, at least it did for us, especially with the extra wet spring and summer we had last year. When we scraped the run floor to the soil level, it was late and we left the pile of debris till the next day when my husband went out to load it in the tractor bucket. When he broke...

I just did my first clean out of our run. Last fall I noticed that I wasn't getting composting as rapidly as I would like in the coop. The majority of the bedding, mixed grass hay and pine chips, was being too well turned by the chickens allowing it to dry. After one particularly soggy week in a...

I have been using pine chips to DL since day one and have noticed that the bedding stayed dried evenly with daily turning. When I cleaned out the coop at the 3 month mark and put the shavings on the compost pile I noticed that they were as dry as a bone. Late summer rolled around and I switched...