The situation is the best place to put the coop is next to the master bedroom side of the house. We will have 8 chickens. I hope to try the deep litter method first. Also have at least a 10 x 16 run. My concern is smell and flys. Anyone have around this many next to your house? Problems?
You definitely need to use food grade DE (diatomaceous earth) to help with the flies and smell. Do a search here on BYC and you'll find plenty of posts about it. Good luck! Gail
I'm not aware of DE doing very much for flies, if used in a normal sensible fashion. You'd have to use quite a lot anyhow and there are better methods. The damper your run, the more odor and flies you'll have. So it'd be real, real important to have as dry a run as you possibly can. Consider a full roof on the run (which is great for predatorproofing too; although pricey and must be built properly and sometimes requires building permits) and raising the footing up above the surrounding area a bit with sand or gravel. Good luck, have fun, Pat
