chicken coop emergency!

[irmad]

I have 8×8 coop. Yesterday I brought 5 lovely 9 month old warren hens. I was advised that the best bedding is sharp sand. I brought 75kg of sharp sand and placed it in the coop. 4 inches. Sharp sand is quite wet..... the problem is today I went in the coop and it stinks big time.... where have I gone wrong? As far as im aware, the sand suppose to absorb the poop and the smell dissapears.... someone please help? Shall I go for the deep litter method?

 

[tdayman]

You put sand in the coop or an outside run?

 

[irmad]

In the coop. Its a shed style coop. Gonna make a run outside soon.

 

[tdayman]

I use pine shavings inside and sand with some hay on top ( I also sprinkle some scratch around in the hay to keep the girls busy) in the outside run.I have not had any bad smelly problems. If you look at the forums tab at the top then the coops, runs, maintenance tab you will find lots of info. I think most people do what I have suggested.

 

[irmad]

I was going to use deep litter method but somone conviced me that sand is better.

 

[DawnMarie64]

I have 8×8 coop. Yesterday I brought 5 lovely 9 month old warren hens. I was advised that the best bedding is sharp sand. I brought 75kg of sharp sand and placed it in the coop. 4 inches. Sharp sand is quite wet..... the problem is today I went in the coop and it stinks big time.... where have I gone wrong? As far as im aware, the sand suppose to absorb the poop and the smell dissapears.... someone please help? Shall I go for the deep litter method?

I'm new at this but shavings seem to be better than anything I have tried; it seems to keep the smell down and/or non existent and I have only had to clean the coop once a week. (they keep pushing the shavings out of the coop) My run doesn't even smell but I have a combination of sand and soil in my yard on top of the shavings they push out.

 

[angel8035]

Why is the sand wet? I use sand. I put shavings in my new coop and instantly regretted it - when they get dirty it is a pain to shovel out and dispose of. I just went out and bought a bunch of sand and will be switching over. All you have to do is rake out any solid waste once in a while - I find the sand really absorbs all of the moisture.

 

[irmad]

The place where I brought the sand, they keep there sands in large 25kg bags with small holes in the bag to keep the moisture out. They keep there bags out in the yard and its been pouring with rain. I dont know how long its going to take for the sand to dry... im now thinking of putting wood shavings down and see how that goes..

 

[jstlitlome]

Yes, the sand should be dry when you put it in there. I did have a time when my water leaked in my coop and got all my sand wet. It was STINKY!

So every day, I locked the girls in the run, and opened the windows and the back access door for lots of cross ventilation. took about 3 days of nice unwet days to get the coop dried out and smelling good again.

I moved my waterer to the run.

Once it is dry, throw some Sweet PDZ in with the sand, and your coop will be smelling much better.

Leslie

 

[irmad]

Sweet pdz? Sounds sweet but I'm not too sure if we get it in the uk..... Does anyone know of anything similar here in the uk.:/