Chicks in the house... STIIIINKY!! HELP?

[Ms. Cluckingly]

So hi there yall.

I've got 2 BR chicks, 2 BO chicks, 2 PR chicks, and 1 WR chick, (all about 2 weeks old) and they are all in this cool shipping kennel thingie my neighbors gave me, for the time being. They've lots of room, (for now), but the smell killed me this morning, as they had completely disgustified a perfectly clean "coop" overnight! They are in our living room right now. I gave them clean litter (and lots of it) last night, fresh water in their waterer, and fresh food, and this morning it is amazingly stinky and everything is dirty again. How do I keep this thing from stinking now? I'm going to use my WHOLE huge bag of pine chips before these kids are even 6 weeks old if it keeps going on like this. Any suggestions?

 

[geebs]

Go to the store and buy pellets... woodstove or horse bedding.. it doesn't matter... Not the paper ones... YUCK... no more chips... that is some nasty businesss.. you will need to change the pellets about every 1 to 2 weeks depending on how many chicks versus area.. you only need a littlebit more than will cover the bottom of the container you are housing in... Oh and you are welcome... this works wonderfully...no smell

 

[Renee']

I didn't use chips/shavings/etc. Since your chicks are a little older now, newspaper should be safe. I lined my brooder with two sheets of newspaper and changed it every morning and everynight. Nooooo stinky ever. Good luck!

 

[Ms. Cluckingly]

Thanks SO much geebs and Renee!! Boy they are stinky! My millies were never this bad. WHEW!! lol I'm up for trying any and everything!

 

[ZooNana]

You will be going through a lot more than 1 bag of shavings in 6 weeks. I agree about the wood pellets. Only problem is, the pellets are darn near impossible to find here in the Springs. (I live just outside of Colorado Springs, to the east) The only reason I have some is because one of the feed stores in town bought a pallet of them cheap from a trucker who's load was overweight. I bought as much as I could from them before they sold out. When you call around, ask for wood pellets made for horse stalls or for wood stove pellets. They are the same usually, but watch out for wood stove pellets with an accelerant added in, you don't want those. I didn't get around to calling the home improvement stores to ask them if they had wood stove pellets, they may even have them on clearance since winter is over.

I'll trade you the stink of just 7 chicks for the stink in my house of 6 brooders that are housing 19, 1 month old chicks, 4, one month old ducklings and 4 turkey poults. I stench I woke up to this morning on this foggy, moist day just about knocked me over. BLAHHHHHH

 

[peepacheep]

As geebs wrote, wood stove pellets work great! I use them in the cat and rabbit litter boxes. Last spring I used fluffy pine shavings for a dozen chicks. Changed the shavings once a week and there was minimal smell. The one time I picked up pine chips instead, what a mess. The chips don't seem to absorb moisture as well as pellets or shavings.

 

[Mrs. Green Thumbs]

My chicks are in the living room and we just now are beginning to smell their...funk. We made a brooder for them and put about an inch of pine shaving's in the bottom. We set this up about a week ago so we can hold off the cleaning of the brooder for 1 week at a time right now (my girls are almost 4 weeks old). I do have to go in and clean out the water thing and the feeder 2 times a day but that only takes me about 3 minutes to refill and clean up.

 

[Ms. Cluckingly]

LOL ZooNana.. I think you can keep your stink.

Thanks so much for the tips. I'm going to call around.

And thanks for the tip as well, peepacheep!

 

[Backyard_Chicken_rancher]

Step 1 Don't brood inside
step 2 Get DE to sprinkle on the shavings
Step 3 don't add so much litter
Step 4 add more litter as time goes on after you have turned the litter and added the DE to it
Step 5 when litter gets high and still smells clean out brooder
Step 6 use lots and lots of candles and Fabreeze
Step 7 if steps 1-6 fail move outside

 

[esthermgr]

I used pine shavings and didn't have a problem with smell unless I let things get moist. Chicks spill a lot of water when they drink, and a brooder that looks dry from the top can have a layer of wet shavings underneath. I elevated their waterer so they weren't spilling as much, and added a new layer of shavings every morning. Toward the end (about 3.5 wks of age) I was dumping the shavings and drying out the brooder about every third day. A layer of newspaper under the shavings made this pretty quick work. I had 9 chicks in a 50-gallon rubbermaid tote. I think I went through 1.5 bags of compressed pine shavings, but the lack of smell was worth it.