Changing to Sweet PDZ

[jthornton]

I don’t remember it being that much more. Larger bag perhaps?

Opps it's $39 for the 40 pound bag of pellets, I was looking at powder before at Amazon so $0.975 a pound compared to $0.36 a pound at Rural King for the 25 pound bag. Only 3 times as expensive at Amazon...

JT

 

[aart]

it's $39 for the 40 pound bag of pellets,

I pay $16 for 40# just 3 miles from home..
...probably wouldn't use the stuff if I had to pay shipping.

 

[jthornton]

I pay $16 for 40# just 3 miles from home..
...probably wouldn't use the stuff if I had to pay shipping.

Shipping is free so they say...

JT

 

[aart]

Shipping is free so they say...

JT

Pffft...tacked onto price 'free'.

 

[MIchickenlady]

That was my thought too...Zen garden. I love raking and smoothing my PDZ, lol. It's another benefit of chicken therapy.

i love this. switching to pdz tomorrow!!

 

[jthornton]

Seeing how this thread has came to light again I thought I'd update it after switching to Sweet PDZ about 1 1/2 years ago in the roost box for the RIR hens. I can say I really love using this. I still use a kitty litter scoop and the curved bottom ones don't work as well as the flat bottom scoops in the RIR roost box, the chicken runs and chicken yard I use a large IPOW mesh strainer I found at Walmart mostly to carry the poop and stuff to the compost bin as the mesh is a bit small, but it will sift fairly well but not as good as the organizer. It's much better built than the ones with a plastic handle as every one I've used in the past with the plastic handle the handle gets loose over time.

In the Cinnamon Queens Coop Deux I use a kitty litter scoop and a 6" x 12" drawer organizer from Bed Bath and Beyond and it takes two trips to the compost bin each morning. I sift out the larger poop with the kitty litter scoop but if there is some smaller bits and there always is I just dump the scoop full in the organizer and shake a bit to separate out the PDZ. I have a 6" x 9" drawer organizer but it's much to small for the 12 Cinnamon Queens who eat 2.5 pounds of food a day!

I made a Zen Rake to use in the Cinnamon Queens poop table as it is quite big at 32" x 96". It takes a couple of passes to level it out but it's therapeutic to draw all the lines then see it full of chicken tracks.


I still use the original PDZ leveler I built for the Rhode Island Reds as it's not much fun bending over and half crawling into the cute but not very functional coop I built from being a naive coop builder back then and thinking if Home Depot posted the plans they must be good. Boy was I in for a surprise coops that look like cute coops don't work in the real world.

Anyway, I found some washers and a couple of dowels and made this to level the PDZ. The main design feature is getting a PDZ level in a crowded roost box so any which way I have to tilt the handle the level stays the same. It gets right up into corners and a couple of passes and I'm done and can get out of the roost box and straighten up my back.

Just a note to why I call it a roost box, nothing else fits in that design but the roosts and I had to be clever with them to get the birds to fit. Even though that design shows a nest box hanging on the end there is not enough height difference between the nest box and the roosts unless they roost in the rafters as they don't show any roosts!

A coop IMHO should also have room for a roost(s) heigher than the nest box, tools, supplies and food and water if the birds are at any time restricted to staying in the coop.



JT

 

[jthornton]

Just an update with some photos from this morning.

The RIR roost box after over 3 years of use.


The CQ's coop after 6 months of use. This is so much easier to maintain, I can stand upright while cleaning it!


The tools I use in the CQ's Coop, look right there at my finger tips... so easy.


Research on the Internet and you get a bad coop, experience that and then you know what a good coop would be like for both you and your birds.

JT