Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[Ashburnham]

Yes that's us too, except when it rains and it gets wet it stops being deep litter and becomes deep muck.

I can't hose at the moment without turning their floor to mud.

The deep litter is only in the house not the run, so it doesn't get wet.

 

[tandykins]

Tandykins I live in dread of an official visit of some sort over our baby rooster called Baby. After my 4:30am run around the garden trying to catch him he has been sleeping in the cat box in the spare bedroom overnight. No more crowing, but he REALLY needs a new home. My veggie hubby has refused to despatch him.

I live next door to one police officer and on the other side a childcare centre. We put their No Crow Collars back on and they're now crowing quietly again.

 

[tandykins]

Hardware cloth is just the Yank word for many types of wire mesh.

*raises hand* Uh, "Yank" here. I had never heard of "hardware cloth" until moving to Australia. We call it "chicken wire" or "wire mesh".

 

[appps]

The deep litter is only in the house not the run, so it doesn't get wet. 

So is mine, that's why my current coop is being renovated . It's not supposed to rain inside but it does (did) in our coop because part of the roof was the cubby huse deck and the only thing keeping the rain out was a tarp.

 

[appps]

*raises hand* Uh, "Yank" here.  I had never heard of "hardware cloth" until moving to Australia.  We call it "chicken wire" or "wire mesh".

Really? Must be a state thing. BYC is full of references to this hardware cloth stuff and it's mostly Americans posting. I pictured it as some sort of metal shade cloth till I googled it

 

[tandykins]

Really? Must be a state thing. BYC is full of references to this hardware cloth stuff and it's mostly Americans posting. I pictured it as some sort of metal shade cloth till I googled it

Totally possible. Much of the US may as well be different countries for how much our laws and customs vary.

Well when I went out to clean my coop I found a crushed egg in the nesting box with a partially formed and dead chick in it. :/ I was pleased, at least, at how my 4 year old handled it. "Oh. Things just die sometimes, don't they mum?"

Yup, kiddo. They do.

 

[Fancychooklady]

*raises hand* Uh, "Yank" here.  I had never heard of "hardware cloth" until moving to Australia.  We call it "chicken wire" or "wire mesh".

It just seems to be a term used very often on this site. I thought it was shade cloth.
We've used timber frame too Ash, only problem is the rats have burrowed under it. The only thing I would change in my main 4 coops is instead of using the regular gauge chicken wire, we should have used the small gauge, to stop those pesky house sparrows from entering the pens and dropping their lice on my chickens.

 

[Fancychooklady]

@tandykins, we still have some flies too, grr. Thank God for pressure washers though. How many chickens do you have? Mine seem to poop a bit too quickly for me to easily scoop so the roosts get scooped to the concrete floor and then more sawdust applies on both. But I'm worried about Winter - I leave in the dark and return in the dark, and am not relishing the idea of my midweek duties!

I need to work out a solution...I hate Winter now as for three months I only see daylight on a Saturday and Sunday! It got so bad last year I had to get myself a daylight lamp for inside the house.

The most effective thing I have found for flies are those sticky coil traps. I buy them from shiploads for $1.60 a pack of 4 . Hang them in the coop, ( away from where you enter, nothing worse than fly infested tape stuck to the back of your head ) and in a few days replace them. Works like a charm.

 

[DylanL]

Sorry to hear you lost your birds

I bought the bunnings timer that turns on and off, costs $60 for a double hose fitting one but they come in single too. It can do as little as a few minutes each hour.

I have a couple metres of black watering system hose with a hose connecter on one end and misting heads along it. I've got it cable tied to the top rail of our fence behind a big tree they use for shade. On those really hot days I just plug the hose in and let the timer turn it on for ten minutes every hour. Amazing how much cooler it makes the air under their tree.

Oh that's awesome, didn't see them when I was there, will have to have another look yeah my shed is under a grapefruit tree and run is covered in shade cloth so that should really keep temps down with water too

 

[tandykins]

The most effective thing I have found for flies are those sticky coil traps. I buy them from shiploads for $1.60 a pack of 4 . Hang them in the coop, ( away from where you enter, nothing worse than fly infested tape stuck to the back of your head ) and in a few days replace them. Works like a charm.

YES. Fly tape in my hair AUUUEGHHFHEIHOIFE. Rage.

Quote:
I have 13 chickens in a 12 square metre coop. They come in to eat and drink and to sleep but otherwise have free reign of my half acre.