Do I have to live with the smell???

Hi.. I'm no expert (yet) but there are products you can use. Search for Sweet PDZ, Stall Dry and DE. I don't want to try to tell you the difference because I'm just learning, but these are three things that folks sprinkle in their coop/run to help with oders and bugs. I use sand in my run and coop...just got my first bag of Sweet PDZ and think it helps...but it's all new

 

We use sand in the run, it makes cleaning easy and I hardly ever smell anything. The poop in the sand gets gritty and goes away.

 

Smell! I have just noticed an odor near my chicken's run. They have been living in the coop/run outdoors since July 4th. It smells a bit sweetish-sour to me. The grass is gone, as you state.
This weekend, I raked the run and dusted with Diaotomaceous earth (Red Lake something....food grade). It has been hot, and humid lately here. The coop does not have the same odor. I am thinking about buying some lime from the farm store... marketed for horse stalls.... Have you tried any of these additives? I am very eager to hear the answers to your post.

 

I'm just learning, too. However, our coop and run sound similar to yours. When the run gets wet, I sprinkle more pine shavings in it. The shavings soak up some of the dampness, and the pine smell is nice. Surprisingly, odor has not been an issue at all in the 6 weeks I've had my chickens. Our coop and run are on a gradual hill - so drainage is good.

 

My son built a coop style chicken tractor for our chickens. After only a couple weeks we realized that we would quickly run out of grass in our back yard-it take less than one week for them to totally eat up the grass and it turns into a smelly mess especially if it rains. So we made it stationary-covered the run and filled the run with sand. I use Sweet PDZ and Food Grade DE to sprinkle in the sand and I scoop the poop every morning before I let them out into the run. I also scoop during the day if I have time. It made a world of difference!

 

Check out this thread on Sweet PDZ...seriously it's supposed to help. I got a 40lb bag for about $12....

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=354603

 

I just started having a slight smell in my run this week, too, due to the rain, etc.. I raked everything out and took a hoe and just turned up a little fresh dirt. Its seemed to work and the chickens loved to dig again. I guess the feasibility of that would depend on the size of your run.

 

I only have five chickens, so maybe that is why my coop doesn't smell, but I have heard that sand is great. It has to be clean sand, and I would recommend going to a place that you can buy sand to be dumped into a truck bed, instead of the bagged sand. One BYCer uses a kittly litter scoop to pick up the poops. (I think her flock is small also though).

I haven't used sand yet because I am trying to use up a bag of hay I have, and it hasn't rained in Southern California, but I know it can get gross when the run is too wet. Good luck!

 

I use DE in the coop and I rake the run 1-2 times a week, take out the poop and wash it out with a hose. I spot clean the run daily where they usually lay. I clean the coop 3-5 times a day because it's located in our garage. I honestly can not smell chicken poop. I throw the contents in the compost every other day. I don't mind the work. I sit on my chair while scooping up the poo.