Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Pastel the Rooster]

Wait. Is it Tuesday?

Wait… it’s not?

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

Nope Wednesday 5:13am…. PT. Think I am 3 hrs ahead of you here.

Wow. I think that I was thinking it was Tuesday because I took those pictures at the barn yesterday

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

I remember that, you started a hatch along

I did indeed! I think that I may have posted some pictures of the chicks on there when I got them…

 

[RoyalChick]

Yes like you. What is your name?

My name is Winnie, but everyone calls me Pooh.
I think I am very pretty. Don’t you agree?

 

[Grandma The Chicken]

She’s adorable

That is her during the winter. When the winter comes, expect her to look like this.

 

[featherhead007]

Wait… it’s not?

Fools, Skeksis fools!!

 

[notabitail]

My name is Winnie, but everyone calls me Pooh.
I think I am very pretty. Don’t you agree?
View attachment 3634906

You are, Poo, but Agathae says she is also beautiful.
(To be blunt, she says she'll poop on me if I dare to not say she is more beautiful. Send her a Beakbook message instructing her on not being mean. Agathae is in a molt and looks ratty. )

 

[Pastel the Rooster]

I just made a Hatch-Day thread for Pastel and Splotch. I couldn’t go to TSC and get a cake, but I may make them a cornbread cake.

 

[ChicoryBlue]

Advice request - if anyone cares to opine I’d appreciate it:

Haul out and replace all the covered run floor litter material, or leave this and build it up even higher, to create a floor of litter - a forest floor essentially - deep enough and high enough to not get wet from below? Is that even possible to do, and is it safe for the chickens?

What’s in there now is wood (ramial) chips/ TSC large wood shavings, / collected leaves & twigs / chopped hemp / a little bit of rice hulls /whatnot added through the year.

Two corners of the covered run are getting consistently really wet. Only one corner is consistently dry. Partly due to the leaking roof I think, which I’m going to hopefully rectify (tarp underneath so that the leaks run off is DH-approved Plan A, Plan B is @bgmathteach 's idea to silicone seal all 240 screws, a difficult ladder-intensive but possibly effective solution).

I’m pretty sure a lot of the water is from the ground below not draining well. We’ve had a serious amount of rain here in the northeast exacerbating this situation. In winter any surface water flows on top of the frozen ground too. Today after a rainy spell I saw standing water just outside the run near one of the corners.

Last winter whenever the snow melted some, I would sometimes see the litter getting damp, and digging down some I could see water. I’d add more stuff on top to keep everyone dry, also because when it got cold again the wet stuff would freeze up hard.

My usual plan every year has been to hoe out the litter in the Fall, and replace a lot of it and add as the year goes on. It does make great mulch.

This summer one corner has been sprouting mushrooms, I think the ramial chips I used are old and perfect mushroom material, and this concerns me so I’ve been raking them out when I spot them. I don’t want to be growing mold! Basically the litter is composting before my eyes. This is what a forest floor does. Could I or should I build or not build on this?

Seems to me also it’s a good idea to not have chickens potentially scratching around in years and years of accumulated poop that for a large part of the run can’t really wash away and be exposed to good sunlight? Would poop-borne diseases be concentrating? This run goes from nice dry spots to the wet composted spots.

I have no problem with the time & labor of hoeing it out and putting the great mulch on the gardens and blueberries. I recall this is what @rural mouse did this year. It’s a big job but do-able over a few days, did it last year and the year before. I also can buy or haul as much replacement litter I need to make a pretty deep litter floor. I will look for newer ramial chips if I use them (more than a year old but not growing weeds already).

What would you all do?

 

[bgmathteach]

Advice request - if anyone cares to opine I’d appreciate it:

Haul out and replace all the covered run floor litter material, or leave this and build it up even higher, to create a floor of litter - a forest floor essentially - deep enough and high enough to not get wet from below? Is that even possible to do, and is it safe for the chickens?

What’s in there now is wood (ramial) chips/ TSC large wood shavings, / collected leaves & twigs / chopped hemp / a little bit of rice hulls /whatnot added through the year.

Two corners of the covered run are getting consistently really wet. Only one corner is consistently dry. Partly due to the leaking roof I think, which I’m going to hopefully rectify (tarp underneath so that the leaks run off is DH-approved Plan A, Plan B is @bgmathteach’s idea to silicone seal all 240 screws, a difficult ladder-intensive but possibly effective solution).

I’m pretty sure a lot of the water is from the ground below not draining well. We’ve had a serious amount of rain here in the northeast exacerbating this situation. In winter any surface water flows on top of the frozen ground too. Today after a rainy spell I saw standing water just outside the run near one of the corners.

Last winter whenever the snow melted some, I would sometimes see the litter getting damp, and digging down some I could see water. I’d add more stuff on top to keep everyone dry, also because when it got cold again the wet stuff would freeze up hard.

My usual plan every year has been to hoe out the litter in the Fall, and replace a lot of it and add as the year goes on. It does make great mulch.

This summer one corner has been sprouting mushrooms, I think the ramial chips I used are old and perfect mushroom material, and this concerns me so I’ve been raking them out when I spot them. I don’t want to be growing mold! Basically the litter is composting before my eyes. This is what a forest floor does. Could I or should I build or not build on this?

Seems to me also it’s a good idea to not have chickens potentially scratching around in years and years of accumulated poop that for a large part of the run can’t really wash away and be exposed to good sunlight? Would poop-borne diseases be concentrating? This run goes from nice dry spots to the wet composted spots.

I have no problem with the time & labor of hoeing it out and putting the great mulch on the gardens and blueberries. I recall this is what @rural mouse did this year. It’s a big job but do-able over a few days, did it last year and the year before. I also can buy or haul as much replacement litter I need to make a pretty deep litter floor. I will look for newer ramial chips if I use them (more than a year old but not growing weeds already).

What would you all do?

Personally, if one end is that wet, I would get some pallets, tear apart one or two to make the tops of the others solid, and put them in the wet corner/end so that the bedding doesn't get saturated. You want it to compost (so some moisture), but not to mold!

So, I would rake/hoe out - at least the wet end completely, and the dry end some (maybe 1/2, as you do want some 'starter' microbes for the deep litter method), put the pallets (with solid tops by adding extra boards in the spaces) down on the wet end, then top up all the bedding. You might have to trim a pallet so that they fit together inside the run based on the width.

New ramial chips are good - if they are really coarse, then a light coating of shavings on top.

Just my thoughts. Do what seems reasonable and practical to you - as what I am suggesting - on top of the roof now - is a lot of extra work. That said, long term it will probably make it easier on you and more comfortable for the chickens - with less extra shaving needed - in the future. I am constantly playing 'clean-up' in my uncovered run with all the rain we are having - and it is a LOT of work, and with the ducks and their wet evacuations, it just gets disgusting if I don't between them and the constant rain - especially in the area that I can't just willy-nilly add bedding due to the gate.