Everyone is discouraging me

[tutulady]

No they are not. I use kat litter. Sprinkle it into the nest and all around their playground. I use shredded paper, (not news Paper. Junk mail works best for me.)
I also sprinkle diatamatious earth. I also use a cheap short sides plastic container. fill it with the shredded paper, cat litter and DE. Easy to clean and always smelling
clean. Try it, you gonna like it. And by the way, do it.

 

[CindaLouWho]

I just got my hens and a rooster 3 weeks ago. I've cleaned out the coop twice, so each Saturday. It takes me 10 minutes... I replace the pine bedding in the center , under the roosts only, and it smells fabulous. I could probably go 2 weeks or more between cleanings, but I don't want to start a fly problem.

 

[aggielady]

Here is my first grow out pen that costs about $60 in material as I had the half sheet of plywood. I still use it 4 years later, just has better wheels and four of them to move around easy. The child's play house was no longer being used so I just screwed it together to strengthen it and put two roost in it. Water dispenser and feed dispenser were made from things lying around. Really doesn't take much to get started and you've all summer to get things right for when they start laying and winter.

[/quote] Great minds! My first coop was very similar in design & also worked great. Your run is a bit larger though.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Do chickens smell? Sure they do! So do dogs, cats, and children, and they usually smell for the same reason--they pooped and you haven't cleaned it up yet.

We have over 50 chickens now, and I am pleased to say that neither the coop nor the run have an odor. The only time either one has smelled bad is when there was a moisture problem--once when the water font in the coop sprung a leak and soaked the bedding, and last year when we have a very long, wet, rainy spell in spring, making the run a soggy, nasty mess. (And that is easy enough to solve with sand or pea gravel, especially on a small scale like 4 chickens.)

In my experience, the reason people tend to think chickens are smelly is because they put them in coops and runs with dirt floors and no bedding material, and then don't clean up any of the poop. ANY creature would smell bad if its poop was just allowed to accumulate wherever it fell until it broke down by natural causes, so it's no wonder they think chickens stink.

The other reason of course is that they drove past a commercial chicken farm once and smelled how nasty it was, and they can't distinguish between massive coops with tens of thousands of jam-packed birds and a backyard run with four chickens in it.

 

[Julez21]

Chickens are awesome to raise but be careful of the "yuppy" neighbors!!! If you keep it clean where they are, they have no bad smell...I clean my coop out every other day so as not to offend the neighbors and my own sense of cleanliness. One of my neighbors claim it will bring his property values down---whatever!! I love my chickens and I have half the neighborhood kids over because they love seeing them, playing with them and getting the eggs out of their coop. Kids need to be around things like this; I think it creates values. Keep it clean and enjoy!!

 

[blackcat0229]

I've had chickens in a lot of places - as a Navy RN I moved around alot. Wetness causes stinkiness more than anything else. Water has to be kept fresh, and the ground must be able to dry out or anything will stink. Most chickens themselves don't stink - just the poop and wet/damp litter. Pine shavings are good bedding and ground cover that stays fresh if it can dry out. My favorite chickens are Buff Brahmas. The eggs are pretty fawn/tan pink, and the hens are very quiet. They have feathered feet and legs that look like pantaloons and will lay in the winter. Good luck.

 

[JT_KROL]

Hi,

I too am fighting the spouse objections...LOL My misses might come around this year...here's hoping... Anyway about where to get full grown birds....From everything I have read doing this can lead to problems...from low to no egg production, sickness, etc...

I have also decided that I don't want to deal with the whole chick thing....so I started looking into pullets or adolescent birds...they will begin laying about a month or so after you get them. I didn't want to go to the big poultry farms because the shipping cost is INSANE!!! the Bird will cost about $20.00 the shipping is about $120 OUCH! So I did the following search in google.... Poultry farms near Mountainhome PA and found a farm that was fairly local to me (about an hour drive) and the birds are only 19.00. Give it a try...

Hope that helps.

Joe

 

[3chickchicks]

I use sand in the coop and in the run. Mine free range all day so the run doesn't get much traffic. But the coop gets lots of poop. In there, I add Sweet PDZ (feed stores or tractor supply should have it). It helps with ammonia and smells. No complaints!

 

[annagarret]

Chickens are awesome to raise but be careful of the "yuppy" neighbors!!! If you keep it clean where they are, they have no bad smell...I clean my coop out every other day so as not to offend the neighbors and my own sense of cleanliness. One of my neighbors claim it will bring his property values down---whatever!! I love my chickens and I have half the neighborhood kids over because they love seeing them, playing with them and getting the eggs out of their coop. Kids need to be around things like this; I think it creates values. Keep it clean and enjoy!!

Stand Strong! Tell your neighbor chickens are free pesticides!!

 

[Kruzer]

At one point I had 14 chickens and absolutely no "stink". You will need to keep their coop clean to avoid that smell however. Right now I am down to just 1 VERY LARGE HEN. She is a Jersey Giant breed, and she rules the whole house, 2 Great Danes and 1 Lab!! She has decided that she likes the top of my Mustang Convertible better than the coop though! So, once a week I go to the car wash!! Not a bad investment for the huge eggs she lays.