California - Northern

[threadgeek]

Quote:

WOW! I've never heard of keeping poison dart frogs! I thought my green bubbling 2 liter bottles in our kitchen window was odd - I was culturing microalgea for the 250 gal brineshrimp tank in the backyard. It looked like a bizarre chemistry experiment! Reptiles is where I draw the line though, I HATE crickets!

Quote: X2!

So the bottom of my coops are going to be 4x8 plywood. Should I stain it or oil it or something? Won't the poop rot it? Even with straw/litter? What do you guys do for floors? It's going to be raised up off the ground about 2 feet.

I use the compost method in my coop - I just have some wire over the dirt floor and ~6" of leaves. This is a relatively recent setup (few months) so I'll have a better opinion of its effectiveness in a year.

 

[Chickengirl1304]

All of my coops are dirt floor with wire over to protect from predators and then more dirt and straw on top. But I want raised houses when we rebuild them all very soon. The linoleum is a good idea but don't they slip?

 

[PetRock]

So the bottom of my coops are going to be 4x8 plywood. Should I stain it or oil it or something? Won't the poop rot it? Even with straw/litter? What do you guys do for floors? It's going to be raised up off the ground about 2 feet.

We put vinyl flooring over the plywood on the floor of our coop.

 

[threadgeek]

Quote: Chicken therapy!!! Works for me!

 

[Chickengirl1304]

We put vinyl flooring over the plywood on the floor of our coop. 

They don't slip on it?

 

[Ali707]

Lol. You guys are cracking me up with the baking/DH comments.

I too was getting irritated with the whole tipped over waterer and just rednecked a nipple waterer for them and they caught on within 20 minutes. It doesn't leak unless they are pecking at it but I put something beneath it to keep the sand dry. It doesn't even leak that much when they do use it.

Good thing I didn't have duct tape because I probably would have used it.

I will post pics of it tomorrow unless I can figure out how to from my phone tonight. Overall it is better than the other waterer because it stays clean and they aren't spilling it. Plus I used a big bottle so I don't have to refill as often.

I bought a pack of 10 chicken nipples off of Ebay or Amazon. Can't remember right now which it was. They were pretty cheap and I can use them where I want.

 

[lawatt]

I had a similar experience when I had 4 broodies at the same time, and was new. In my quest to move eggs around between them I opened an egg to eggtopsy that had a live chick in it. I decided that I needed to back up a bit on my intervention.

I did trust my broodies to take care of their chicks and they did. My flock is unimpressed with chicks in general now and when they go broody again I will leave them alone (someone quote me on this when I try to intervene) until they leave the nest to raise chicks, then I will take the remaining eggs and put the live ones in the incubator and finish hatching because that's where I saw the most loss.

I really appreciate the "conclusion" posts after someone has gone through different experiences. I think they really help us all learn and apply to our own experience or add to our chicken knowledge bank!

I think you did a great job after these girls threw you into the hatching chicks game!

Thanks for sharing your experience.

thanks Pam! and Deb earlier -- unquestionably happy with the 11 chicks (although i'm convinced most of them will turn out to be boys), and looking forward to the next time one goes broody... to give it all another try! as i DO like seeing them all motoring around the yard exploring things together...!

 

[HighNDryFarm]

Quote:
She's just a baby still. Only about 9 weeks. The chicks with her in the picture are about 5 weeks. I sold all the chicks that hatched with her but kept her because I wanted an OE. She took the following hatch of chicks in and became their mom. She's really an amazing girl. My friend said she was going to cost me a ton in therapy because I robbed her of her childhood! I hope she lays a nice dark olive egg.

 

[lawatt]

I use the compost method in my coop - I just have some wire over the dirt floor and ~6" of leaves. This is a relatively recent setup (few months) so I'll have a better opinion of its effectiveness in a year.

similarly, my coop/run has a dirt floor, with deep composting litter (pine shavings from the henhouse, leaves, cut grass/weeds/etc) and no wire beneath -- instead there's a "skirt" of wire around the OUTside of the perimeter, so that anything that tries to dig near the coop gets dissuaded quickly. this way the chickens (when not out free-ranging) can dig/scratch down through the litter layer to get at interesting bugs etc in the dirt below, and can even dust bathe in a few places where the litter is thinner (the coop is on a slight slope, so one end is higher than the other) -- in nearly a year's time, i've had zero break-ins by critters from the outside, and the litter layer doesn't smell at all unless there's been an, ahem, recent addition near where one is standing. and i took out a bunch to use as mulch for my apple trees back in Feb. very very happy with this set-up, very low maintenance.

 

[HighNDryFarm]

All of my coops are dirt floor with wire over to protect from predators and then more dirt and straw on top. But I want raised houses when we rebuild them all very soon. The linoleum is a good idea but don't they slip?

We have one coop with a raised plywood floor and I do deep litter method with pine shavings. It stays really dry. The other is a dirt floor with deep litter method w/pine shavings and as long as they all stay dry they're fine. I remove all the shavings once a year in the raised floor coop and some of the dirt one. I did the raised floor a couple of weeks ago and was in the other coop today and realized it's time for that coop. Time to remove the poop from the coop!