- Jul 6, 2010
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Okay before we start a couple of things. First, after we were first married we lived next door to a large egg "factory" so I know what these things smell like (took me another 25 years to convince my DW that chickens could be kept under circumstances that did not smell like that!) Also I'm not Mr Clean or Harriet Homemaker who thinks the coop has to be cleaned every day--no poop board!!!. I clean my 12 by 12 coop down to bare floor once a year--in April--and then toss in 4 bales of pine shavings. Sometimes, in midwinter if I think the shavings may be getting matted down too much under the roosts, I'll spread another bale. Under these circumstances the coop does not smell like chicken manure but remains pretty neutral to piney smelling. As far as outside is concerned the only time it smells of chicken poop around there is between the time I spread it until I rototill it under in April. We have enough room outside that the chickens are dispersed enough so there is never any problem aside from what gets tracked into the house. My point being that I know the bad chicken smell and it isn't happening here.
Now to smelling chickens. Each night when I close the pop door I have to pass in front of the open coop windows, usually being eyed by a dozen or so birds who, despite the fact I do this every night don't seem to know what I'm doing. Given the open window and proximity of the chickens as I pass by I get a whiff of "chicken". This is not a perfume smell but a very pleasant, earthy smell like the smell of the plowed ground after a rain, the air on a dewy morning, crushed maple leaves or freshly mown grass. You can get the same smell--and I have--by picking up a chicken and burying your nose in it's neck feathers--assuming it hasn't just been dusting itself or rolling in the pine shavings. Maybe if people were aware of this there would be less of that "chickens smell bad" PR that seems to be going around.
Now to smelling chickens. Each night when I close the pop door I have to pass in front of the open coop windows, usually being eyed by a dozen or so birds who, despite the fact I do this every night don't seem to know what I'm doing. Given the open window and proximity of the chickens as I pass by I get a whiff of "chicken". This is not a perfume smell but a very pleasant, earthy smell like the smell of the plowed ground after a rain, the air on a dewy morning, crushed maple leaves or freshly mown grass. You can get the same smell--and I have--by picking up a chicken and burying your nose in it's neck feathers--assuming it hasn't just been dusting itself or rolling in the pine shavings. Maybe if people were aware of this there would be less of that "chickens smell bad" PR that seems to be going around.
