SOOOOOOO pretty LOVE those pretty colored leaves!!!!GReat. Now I feel better. I often rake leaves, sticks and all and dump into the coops or runs. Just need to make it deeper. THank you Beekissed!!
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SOOOOOOO pretty LOVE those pretty colored leaves!!!!GReat. Now I feel better. I often rake leaves, sticks and all and dump into the coops or runs. Just need to make it deeper. THank you Beekissed!!
Composting? How long does your bedding have to sit before it is suitable for placing on my garden. I am a newbie to chickens and I keep hearing how wonderful chicken manure is for my garden.
Any information is appreciated.
The vents would be for at night when the doors are closed. I cannot leave their doors open at night as stray animals might get in and clean my barn out for me. I have overhead ventilation and from what I understand, I also need floor level ventilation so my birds don't get frostbite from their breath.ONe of the factors that I have noticed is how much of the air is replaced and how often. DOn't know the technical tems. When we built our house, we place a fan centrally pulling air to the middle of the house, down a tube and out of the house. THe purpose is obvious. We can control the exchange by increasing the speed of the fan. THe "in" vents were supposed to be louved vents cut into the outside walls. At the last minute the company told us that recent studies showed that the leakage around the windows provided enough fresh air due to the negative pressure in the house.
Right now we leave windows slightly open. Even with a fan, the room with my 2 boys gets too hot and stuffy over night. ANd it is October!!
In the diagram above , if the door is open, why the vent?? Is one in and the other out?? Not clear why you need two openings. I"m sure I"m just missing something.
The building I'm converting to a coop and going to use deep litter in has a cement floor with bark chunks already there, and peeling paint. Once I finish scraping the paint, I don't think I'm going to be able to get every little bit up. Do I need to get rid of all the paint chips, thus also getting rid of the bark, or can I just pick up the bigger bits and stir the small chips in? I don't know if the paint is water or oil based, but I'm pretty sure it's lead-free, since the building was built in the '80s and lead paint was banned in 1978. I have no way of knowing what the pigments in the paint are, but the chips are a very light green, almost white, and a deep forest green.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, since I don't know what the pigments are, I probably should toss everything instead of using the litter in a veggie garden. Darn.
ONe of the factors that I have noticed is how much of the air is replaced and how often. DOn't know the technical tems. When we built our house, we place a fan centrally pulling air to the middle of the house, down a tube and out of the house. THe purpose is obvious. We can control the exchange by increasing the speed of the fan. THe "in" vents were supposed to be louved vents cut into the outside walls. At the last minute the company told us that recent studies showed that the leakage around the windows provided enough fresh air due to the negative pressure in the house.
Right now we leave windows slightly open. Even with a fan, the room with my 2 boys gets too hot and stuffy over night. ANd it is October!!
In the diagram above , if the door is open, why the vent?? Is one in and the other out?? Not clear why you need two openings. I"m sure I"m just missing something.
I do tend to be a little paranoid about pigments and whatnot--my family has had experience with heavy metal poisoning and, being an art major, I know how toxic some of the pigments can be. But maybe house paint uses less toxic ones--the really bad natural ones are also really expensive (cadmium's especially horrible, if I recall correctly... Then again, cadmium's used for warm colors) and the synthetics are likely cheaper and safer.I wouldn't worry too much about those little things. I'd just compost it all and let the "chips" fall where they may....They will be buried under a lot of acidic compost for a long time before they ever reach your garden, so there is a good chance they will have degraded into nothing much by the time that goes on your garden.![]()
I am new to the group. I have been reading about the deep method of keeping the coops. I keep seeing everyone saying I throw in DE in the bedding. Can someone tell me what DE is?
Thanks!!! Baygirl
So... ?Well, air flows more readily if there is more than one opening in a room. On a hot day, you can open one window and not get much air flow, but open another and suddenly you have air that is moving instead of just static, stale air. Same in a coop...if one only has upper venting in a coop there may be some air escaping those vents but it won't be as active...more of a slow seep of humidity and heat, but add a lower vent and suddenly you have air that moves. If a coop had an attic fan it might move just fine by the fan sucking that air up and out, but since they don't, one has to use an intake of fresh cold air to move the stale, warm air a little more quickly out the upper vents.
You can get lead testing kits. When my cildren were born, we test all old furniture that we were suspicious of. Yes, the paint was banned, but did an old can of it get used after the ban date. Testing is very easy once you have a kit.- and I would put it in the trash, IMO. YOu are right not to compost it into your food source.The building I'm converting to a coop and going to use deep litter in has a cement floor with bark chunks already there, and peeling paint. Once I finish scraping the paint, I don't think I'm going to be able to get every little bit up. Do I need to get rid of all the paint chips, thus also getting rid of the bark, or can I just pick up the bigger bits and stir the small chips in? I don't know if the paint is water or oil based, but I'm pretty sure it's lead-free, since the building was built in the '80s and lead paint was banned in 1978. I have no way of knowing what the pigments in the paint are, but the chips are a very light green, almost white, and a deep forest green.
Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, since I don't know what the pigments are, I probably should toss everything instead of using the litter in a veggie garden. Darn.