Chicken yard smells... How do you keep it fresh? And New here

[teach1rusl]

How often do you remove the poop from their run??? It's no different than keeping a few dogs in a fairly small yard; if you don't pick up the poop, it's gonna stink soon enough!
A lot of folks go with a few inches of commercial sand in their runs because it's so easy to rake/scoop out frequently. I actually snap one of those thin, latex medical gloves on and go around collecting poop every few days. If you find the right rake (thin, flexible, tightly packed tines), that would work too. Sprinkling the DE as Opa mentioned will help too, as it's a drying agent (will dry out the poop fairly well).

 

[stretchc1]

Hi Kevin,

I'm not in the city exactly, but in town in a very small yard with neighbors close. Based on the info I got here on BYC, I made sure my coop had a poop board under the roost. It's just a piece of plywood covered with stick-on vinyl floor tiles. Every other day I use a mason's trowel to scrape the poop off the board into a bucket. Then I take a kitty-litter poop scoop (it has holes) and take a quick run through the run scooping up what I can see. Then the whole bucket full goes into the compost.

I began with a run with a dirt floor but quickly brought in a load of sand (one pick-up bed's worth was cheap and covers the bottom of my 8x10' run) because the place was getting rank. The sand is MUCH easier to clean--the sand falls through the holes but the poop stays in the scoop. Every once in a while, I rake it up to keep it from compacting. And--again based on recommendations on BYC--I got a big bag of food-grade DE. Every week or two, depending on the weather, I sprinkle a bunch on the sand. The chickens work it in as they scratch, but I figure it helps with any creepy crawlies when they take their dust baths and generally roll around in the sand. And it seems to help keep the flies from proliferating.

This maintenance doesn't take me much time at all, but it keeps the smell down. I will say, however, that it seems impossible to keep the smell Completely unnoticeable in the summer. Chickens are little poop machines. Whaddaya gonna do?

Good luck!

 

[Keara]

Quote:
I add lime to my waste litter/compost, not in the coop.

 

[Keara]

Kevin D. :

And it is true that it really only smells when it is wet.

Kevin

Kevin, is the smell ammonia or rotted food? If it is more like rotted food try to limit food spillage, and try giving your girls some greens in their diet.​

 

[elmo]

You could put a couple of inches of sand in your run, then scoop the poop with one of these:

http://www.google.com/products/cata...og_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB4Q8wIwAQ#


I taped mine to a long wooden handle so I wouldn't need to stoop. It gets the poop but leaves the sand behind. And sand tends to coat the cecal poops, drying them out and ending the smell almost immediately.

I love sand!

 

[imusa76]

I have the same issue, I'm in a town but neighbors are close, my coop is clean and smells very little, but my run is 4x8 and dirt thats stinks, I was thinking of making a cement slab 2" thick to keep it clean, I can put wood shaving down, and hose off the cement to clean it, as for a dirt baths, I was thinking of adding a contaner with dirt in there.
I only have 6 chickens in there, I aways scrape the ground to clean the poop, but their smell is in the ground, they free range in the yard, when we get home from work, so they get a chance to get out of the smell.

 

[oconnorfamily25]

I've experimented with tons of different litter types, but shallow a cedar and shredded paper mix works best for our coop. It keeps the smell down a lot.

 

[Alpha Chick]

imusa76 wrote: "I have the same issue, I'm in a town but neighbors are close, my coop is clean and smells very little, but my run is 4x8 and dirt thats stinks, I was thinking of making a cement slab 2" thick to keep it clean, I can put wood shaving down, and hose off the cement to clean it, as for a dirt baths, I was thinking of adding a contaner with dirt in there..."

We are new at this also and used our concrete patio pad for under our coop as a temporary measure. We had the chicks for 2 weeks and the flies were horrid and the smell not so good. We moved the coop (and ark) onto our backyard, which is 10" thick mulch and sprinkled DE in the coop and their tiny run. We have almost no flies and no scent and they have been in our yard for over a month now.

I am now wondering what we will use in our new coop when we get it built. Pine is not good for the garden, cedar is not good for the birds, sand won't work for us since we are trying to make dirt out of our sand. We will probably use the free mulch the city provides, and strain it, so it is almost a very light airy dirt. Any suggestions are very welcome.

Jeni

 

[imusa76]

I just poured the cement when I got home from work 3" thick with wire mesh inside it, I will add wood shaving now over it tomorrow, so now when I clean up, I can wash down the slab also.
in side my coop it barly smells and no flies, I hope the run will be the same now.
this will also help stop the rat that was tunneling up from under the run.

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Kevin D. :

I have a chicken run and coop in the city... yes I know right! Anyway, it is starting to smell a bit nasty, and I was wondering what you members used to keep the smell down. I only have 4 hens, and it is a fairly large run, but the only thing is it is not movable.

Thanks,

Kevin

Hi Kevin,
welcome to raising chickens, hope your experience turns out as wonderul as it has for many of us. When I started out, I had a small coop that was on a hard dirt pad so I totally relate to the overwhelming odor from only a few chickens. This is what worked for me. If the ground is soft enough to work with, rake in some lyme to the soil pretty good. If the ground is hard, try softening it up with a pick axe, then mixing in the lyme. I first put down a thin layer of cedar shavings to cover the dirt, then I put in all my grass cuttings from the yard, and also coffee grounds. Like I read in another post, throw some feed, or always throw your feed onto the ground, that way the chickens will turn the litter over everyday, and if the dirt is soft, they can also find tasty treats in the soil as well. Each week, I would add new grass cuttings to the existing litter, springle a little bit more cedar shavings to give it a good balance. I would also generously sprinkle spent coffee grounds in there that I often pick up from the local coffee houses, for free, but make sure you dry the grounds out first. The coffee grounds have a dual purpose. First of all, the droppings from your chickens harden in it rather quickly by absorbing the odors, minimixing the smell Not only will you be doing a little bit of composting with the litter, but the soil underneath doesnt harden up. I only needed to clean it out once a month, unless it rains and floods the coop, but I would just scrape it all out and add to the compost bin. Yah, so every month, rake out the dried litter mixture, and repeat the same steps above each time you change the litter. People were amazed that I didnt have any odor coming out of the coop, I always credited the coffee grounds! When I got serious about the chickens and broke down their little coop to build them a huge henhouse/run, the dirt that was under their existing coop was like top of the line top soil! Like you, I started with 5, now have over 60! I use the same method, but its a deep litter, with my 10' by 20' henhouse/run and I only change the litter out several times a year, (unless we get flooded) and I dont have an odor problem at all. Under their roost in the henhouse, I have the large automotive oil drip pans; I cover the bottom with coffee grounds and their droppings are firm and odorless, not to mention, no scraping, it all just rolls into the bin within seconds. People are still amazed that I have no odors and I happy that my cleaning job is so quick! Happy clucking, hope this helps.​