how often do i need to clean??

[joan1708]

I clean daily. Sometimes I'll clean a few times a day.

By doing this it keeps those pesky flies away.

Gail Damerow wrote in her Storey guide to Chickens book that if you clean your coop too much, you can increase the fly problem because you won't have fly larva predators. That was surprising to me when I read it. I don't know if she is going by personal experience or this is researched data.

I occasionally pick up the big poops in the run or chicken yard if I see them and I swear I don't have a fly or a smell problem. Maybe it's because I only have 3 silkies, and I have a fairly large area for them. I do pick up the poop in the coop daily. I keep a lot of wood shavings in the run, coop and yard. When I go into the run or yard, I don't usually see or smell chicken poop. I think the deep litter takes care of it.

 

[Brookliner]

our coop is 7X12 and we have 14 hens in it. i tried deep litter but the ammonia smell got so bad i had to clean it out before i could even add a layer of shavings. i now clean it every 6-8 weeks. we use 4" and 6" boards as roosts so the poop doesn't drop to the floor. we scrape the poop off the rosting boards every day, but the smell still gets really strong. we have 8 vents cut into the walls...2 on each wall, so we think that is pretty good ventilation. the ladies have an outside run they stay in most of the day. we think we're doing all the right stuff to make deep litter a good option for our coop, but it sure isn't working out that way.
now 4 of our hens have bare red rumps and we're worried itmay be a result of the ammonia on the roosts. even tho we scrape the poop and they don't have to sit in it night after night, we're worried the build up on the wooden boards may be causing the feather loss and irritation. we have checked for mites and haven't found any. plus, wouldn't all of the hens have them...not only 4. they have had the feather loss for about 5 months now. they have indoor and outdoor dust baths with wood ashes, sand and DE. i was hoping that would prevent any lice or mites.
any suggestions for the ammonia smell, or should we just keep cleaning out every 6-8 weeks and give up any hope of deep litter? any ideas on whether the ammonia build up in the roosts may be causing the ladies to loose feathers on their bums and get irritated skin?
and as long as i'm asking.......we have a bunch of garlic mustard in our yard. can i feed it to our chickens??

I would suggest getting a bag of "Stall Fresh" it is PDZ or zoelite a natural mineral that absorbs ammonia. I have raised poultry for over 30 years and since I have used PDZ I have had no ammonia smell. I have trays (plywood with a 1/2 " wooden edge to hold the PDZ, under my roosts. My roosts are 2 x 3" with the 3" side up where they put their feet. The roosts are 5 inches above the poop tray. I scrape any poop off the roosts daily, although there is very little, all the poop drops into the poop tray which is 20" wide and runs along the whole length of roost. I clean the poop out of the PDZ daily. The PDZ coated poop goes directly into my compost pile and has the added benefit of keeping the compost from smelling and keeps the fly population down.

You might have feather picking going on. I would spray the featherless parts of the hens with blue-kote. Use rubber gloves when you do this as the blue kote will stain what ever it touches. It has gentian violet in it. It is antiseptic and also discourages the other hens from picking feathers from their coop mates. The possible culprits are the hens that have not lost feathers.

 

[RugenerGooser]

I would suggest getting a bag of "Stall Fresh" it is PDZ or zoelite a natural mineral that absorbs ammonia. I have raised poultry for over 30 years and since I have used PDZ I have had no ammonia smell. I have trays (plywood with a 1/2 " wooden edge to hold the PDZ, under my roosts. My roosts are 2 x 3" with the 3" side up where they put their feet. The roosts are 5 inches above the poop tray. I scrape any poop off the roosts daily, although there is very little, all the poop drops into the poop tray which is 20" wide and runs along the whole length of roost. I clean the poop out of the PDZ daily. The PDZ coated poop goes directly into my compost pile and has the added benefit of keeping the compost from smelling and keeps the fly population down.

You might have feather picking going on. I would spray the featherless parts of the hens with blue-kote. Use rubber gloves when you do this as the blue kote will stain what ever it touches. It has gentian violet in it. It is antiseptic and also discourages the other hens from picking feathers from their coop mates. The possible culprits are the hens that have not lost feathers.

I use the same thing for my waterfowl. It works great! We clean frequently to keep down flies and too moist conditions. We clean our pools daily and the small pools morning and early evening.

 

[RugenerGooser]

I would suggest getting a bag of "Stall Fresh" it is PDZ or zoelite a natural mineral that absorbs ammonia. I have raised poultry for over 30 years and since I have used PDZ I have had no ammonia smell. I have trays (plywood with a 1/2 " wooden edge to hold the PDZ, under my roosts. My roosts are 2 x 3" with the 3" side up where they put their feet. The roosts are 5 inches above the poop tray. I scrape any poop off the roosts daily, although there is very little, all the poop drops into the poop tray which is 20" wide and runs along the whole length of roost. I clean the poop out of the PDZ daily. The PDZ coated poop goes directly into my compost pile and has the added benefit of keeping the compost from smelling and keeps the fly population down.

You might have feather picking going on. I would spray the featherless parts of the hens with blue-kote. Use rubber gloves when you do this as the blue kote will stain what ever it touches. It has gentian violet in it. It is antiseptic and also discourages the other hens from picking feathers from their coop mates. The possible culprits are the hens that have not lost feathers.

On the gentian violet...can you use that on waterfowl also? Once in a while I get a bully=esque one that likes to pick feathers.

 

[Brookliner]

I don't know. Maybe ask on the duck or goose forum.

 

[Nicole01]

I still clean at least twice a day. If I don't, the flies are horrid! No poop = no flies. Plus my coops inside my garage keeping it extra clean keeps the smell completely away.

Update on my maple tree. It grew fantastic with chicken compost! I plant everything with my chicken compost! I haven't had to water the tree either. The rain has taken care of that.

 

[beaglex3]

thank you for the reply. i will have to get some pdz. it sounds like a very useful product! i will also get some blue kote. those featherless hens are the biggest mystery and frustration for us. we moved our roosts out farther from the wall thinking maybe their rumps rubbing on the poopy wall was the problem. so far no new feathers are growing back. :-(

i make sure to keep de in their dust baths and since we heat our house with a wood stove, i have tons of wood ashes that i also mix in the baths. i don't see any life form living on the hens and am hoping the de and ashes have prevented mites & lice. i read on byc about coating the bald areas with bag balm. haven't tried that yet, but wonder if anyone has and has had good results. i have some of that and could use it until i can get blue kote.if i can get our baldies to grow new feathers, i'll be a happy chicken farmer!
thanks again

 

[Keggen]

thank you for the reply. i will have to get some pdz. it sounds like a very useful product! i will also get some blue kote. those featherless hens are the biggest mystery and frustration for us. we moved our roosts out farther from the wall thinking maybe their rumps rubbing on the poopy wall was the problem. so far no new feathers are growing back. :-(

i make sure to keep de in their dust baths and since we heat our house with a wood stove, i have tons of wood ashes that i also mix in the baths. i don't see any life form living on the hens and am hoping the de and ashes have prevented mites & lice. i read on byc about coating the bald areas with bag balm. haven't tried that yet, but wonder if anyone has and has had good results. i have some of that and could use it until i can get blue kote.if i can get our baldies to grow new feathers, i'll be a happy chicken farmer!
thanks again

Depending on how they lost the feathers they may not grow back until the hens go through a molt. Sometimes the shaft of the feather stays stuck in their skin so they won't lose that until the molting process, and the shaft prevents a new feather from being grown.

 

[chickenmanreno]

What if I have got a few sick chickens should I change the pine shavings now or wait till the chickens are better? Or just add more?

 

[beaglex3]

i think they are thru the molt, for the most part, anyway. i have been feeding them feather fixer for a couple months now to help if their feather loss was due to lack of nutrients or mites. all of the chickens who had bald spots still do. winter is coming and we're worried about the bare butts and the one with no feathers on her back. the coop is insulated, and 1/2 of their outdoor run is warpped in visqueen, but if it gets below freezing it's going to be coooold on bare skin. i guess we'll just have to see what happens.

on another subject, for the last week or 2 one of the roost boards has clear mucus on it along with the normal poop. at 1st we thought it was a shell-less egg, but since i have found a couple of those in nesting boxes, and what i find on the roost board is 1st thing in the morning after they come down from roosting, i am thinking it's poop. does anyone know what would be causing this? it looks just like a raw egg white, clear, thick and slimy. pretty gross. thanks for any ideas.