coop smell

duxtrail

Hatching
8 Years
Mar 13, 2011
7
0
7
I am getting ready to build a coop for my new chicks, 18 successful hatch out of 19!!! After giving away the roosters I am assuming I will have about 8 hens. My question is, how close to the house, deck ,etc is too close for smell? I plan to keep it pretty clean. Is it smelly? I didn't think so but a friend just said it would be.
thanks!
 
Kinda depends.

My coop is 15 feet away from my living room--but it is dry here. It only smells on the 3 days a year when it rains.
 
Mine doesn't smell. But I am lucky enough to be able to clean it daily.
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How far away from the house/deck can you put the coop? It will smell especially when the run gets a lot of rain. You can also have problems with flys. I would say put it as far away from the house as you can. I have mine on the back side of my 2 acre property as far as I could build it. That was my wife's big concern.
 
also depends on the direction of the wind..

Ours is not that smelly and I only clean about 2x a year...but I live on a farm so maybe I don't notice it?? I don't know...plus they poo all over the yard, so its not like they poo in the coop all day long.
 
Chickens have a bad reputation for being stinky, because of people that keep them in filthy, neglected conditions. Most people that think chickens stink either visited or talked to someone that visited a poorly cared for flock.

I have my coop close to the house and odor isn't an issue. If you have an odor problem, it's usually because you need to be doing something different. It could be any one of a dozen different things. Chicken housing shouldn't be stinky. If you ever have an issue, just post on the forum and get some help. People can usually help you figure out what's causing it and what you need to do to fix the problem. It could be a water leak, overcrowding that needs more intensive management, a bad run design, poop boards that need more frequent scraping, litter that's out of balance, etc. A base of sand in the run can be very helpful in wetter climates, too.

I do use a disposable fly trap away from the house. That does smell bad. Since we have dogs that poop in the yard and the neighbors all have livestock, we did that even during the years we didn't have chickens. So, flies aren't a big deal for us.
 
I can't tell from your profile where you live, but if you live where it snows, that'd be a consideration of how far from the house you want to have your coop.

Walking across an acre of land in the SNOW just to take care of chickens gets old FAST!



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moisture = smell, in chicken land. you can battle it with roofing, ventilation, bedding, temperatures, managing your watering system to avoid spills and leaks, maintaining a proper space ratio for your bird load.

Crowding, wet bedding or no bedding, or bedding that stinks when it gets wet, no ventilation, not cleaning the poop regularly, allowing feed to get wet and buried under wet bedding, all these conditions, or any one, or any combo of these conditions will make your chicken area stink. One common rookie mistake is to try to dry up muddy areas by adding straw or hay over it. Any organic (living type stuff that rots) added to mud, just absorbs and holds water, and protects the area from even evaporating, like putting a wet sponge or towel on top of your jeans to dry them off. Doesn't work, It holds water and then bacteria do their natural thing to break down organic material, and they release some very smelly gasses that did NOT originate from your chickens, but from the mistaken fix you did on muddy areas. Over time you will learn these things. Who wouldn't think that lots of straw or old hay over mud wouldn't help? Most of us, but it doesn't. Hope you can get/keep your chicken area smell free.
 
I agree, you get what you put into it as far as taking care of it, if you lack on it, then you will have a smelly coop and run....if your good about keeping it clean then you will do fine. I have a flock of 32, with a privace gate as a door and ventilation across the front of the coop, sometimes if the weather permits I keep the door open, but if its cool or rainy I close it and leave it cracked, so they can go in and out, so the only ventilation is across the top front of the coop, Like I said I have 32 in that Main coop and I do NOT GET ANY STINK AT ALL....I can lock myself in it and it smells clean.

36033_perches.jpg


I use the Deep Litter method, and I have it 6" deep with shavings and Food Grade DE, every 3 days or so I sift out the dry poop and stir the rest all around...I change it once a year, and when I do I take out only 2 buckets worth of shavings to keep and put back into the coop to mix with the clean. I had read somewhere that you want to keep the same PH the coop had before, so do this to keep it stable and it has worked for me. The rest I clean out, and agian put fresh DE....my coop is 6' tall by I believe 8-10' across.

this is the coop when we first built it, you can see the ventilation across the front, dirfectly behind this the girls roost and can over look the whole entire yard. I use reg. branches from the yard, this way its natural and also I can change them when I need too. This also helps in keeping the coop stink free

36033_roost.jpg


36033_roosting.jpg



I have other coops, one being a Play skool house that keeps 4 hens and one roo....with branches in it also for roost, and deep litter, and NO STINK EITHER!!!! They just go in during the day to lay, and at night to bundle up and keep warm. No stink.
 
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I have my hens in a metal shed that is right behind our garage. If it smells when I open their door it is time to change out the shavings. Sometimes I clean droppings daily,and sometimes I let it go and just clean out the coop each week.
 

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