Got myself in a predicament...

[Rooapalooza]

Do your chickens have access to both of those open areas, and what are the dimensions? How many chickens will you have after you sell more?

 

[chickenmomma16]

Seeing your long view photos, I see your problem. You're living on what was once a deep lake where Indians canoed and fished, and I bet you can find arrowheads like crazy up in the surrounding woods.

But that doesn't help your problem. During the rainy season, that meadow tries to revert back to being a lake. Other than elevating everything, I don't see any solution. Trenching only works if you have enough slope to get water moving away. In your situation, it appears that your place is where water wants to end up.

You could create dikes with sandbags, and use a sump pump to pump accumulated water out of the chicken area. But it would only resurface since the water table is only an inch deep.

Perhaps you would do better to be raising ducks than chickens.

I apologize for not being any help and for being a wise-ass.

Haha! No apologies necessary! I seriously thought about ducks... but I love my Ameraucanas too much and I’m quite invested in them. Yeah, you should have seen this place after 13 inches of snow that fast melted and a rain storm on top of it. The run was literally completely flooded and the birds stayed inside the coop for days until the water subsided. Luckily as soon as the rain stops the water retreats quickly.

So I guess I’m SOL then.

I’ll try to strip off the tarp with the next big rain and see if the poop gets washed away at least It seems to be cleaner on the edges where the water hits. I plan on getting arborist chips next year for a raised garden area close by the coop and I’ll address possibly adding more chips around/in the run area. I just need this to last me a few more years!

 

[Ebony Rose]

Do they grow rice anywhere near you in Washington? If so, you can often get the empty husks free for the hauling. They're incredibly light weight, will not absorb water or mud, but will help to pack your mud down. You can fashion a higher foot board using 2x8's around the outside of your existing run to help hold the rice husks in, and with a half inch space at the bottom, will allow the water to escape the run (or at least not cause additional back-up of the water flow). This should hold you over until you can get in there and muck everything out. The mess in your run is biodegradable, as are the husks, so you should be able to use it all as mulch at the end of Spring under your shrubs, bushes, trees, and along the edges of your garden, if you have one, to suppress weed growth.

 

[chickenmomma16]

Do your chickens have access to both of those open areas, and what are the dimensions? How many chickens will you have after you sell more?

I just sold 4 more yesterday.
I could open the other side but for the sake of coop peace, I have 2 runs and inside it’s portioned off into 2 separate areas.

The large coop area with the larger run is:
7ft x 16ft run
Inside is 8ft x 8ft with most of the floor open. I have poop boards scooped daily and feeder and nest boxes inside under the roosts/poop boards. As of tonight, holds 21 hens and 1 cock.

The smaller coop area and smaller run is:
10ft x 10ft run
Inside is 4ft x 8ft
Currently holds 5 cockerel brothers. Soon to be only 2.

Then one of those 2 cockerels will move to a small prefab coop we are repairing and he’ll get 2-3 of the hens in that coop and 4 more hens will get moved over to the smaller coop area with the other cockerel.
That’s the master plan by spring.

 

[chickenmomma16]

Do they grow rice anywhere near you in Washington? If so, you can often get the empty husks free for the hauling. They're incredibly light weight, will not absorb water or mud, but will help to pack your mud down. You can fashion a higher foot board using 2x8's around the outside of your existing run to help hold the rice husks in, and with a half inch space at the bottom, will allow the water to escape the run (or at least not cause additional back-up of the water flow). This should hold you over until you can get in there and muck everything out. The mess in your run is biodegradable, as are the husks, so you should be able to use it all as mulch at the end of Spring under your shrubs, bushes, trees, and along the edges of your garden, if you have one, to suppress weed growth.

No rice here.

 

[azygous]

You have perfect conditions for growing rice.

 

[Rooapalooza]

I just sold 4 more yesterday.
I could open the other side but for the sake of coop peace, I have 2 runs and inside it’s portioned off into 2 separate areas.

The large coop area with the larger run is:
7ft x 16ft run
Inside is 8ft x 8ft with most of the floor open. I have poop boards scooped daily and feeder and nest boxes inside under the roosts/poop boards. As of tonight, holds 21 hens and 1 cock.

The smaller coop area and smaller run is:
10ft x 10ft run
Inside is 4ft x 8ft
Currently holds 5 cockerel brothers. Soon to be only 2.

Then one of those 2 cockerels will move to a small prefab coop we are repairing and he’ll get 2-3 of the hens in that coop and 4 more hens will get moved over to the smaller coop area with the other cockerel.
That’s the master plan by spring.

Got it! Since you do have a plan for (relatively) soon, I would say a fine temporary measure is to put some activated carbon or other safe de-stink stuff down, then put cardboard on top of it, then either straw, which you'd change out when it gets gross, or pine shavings. I use straw and leaves, which I rake straight to my compost, and they don't stink any more than anything else in the compost. You will of course need to get all those wood chips out sometime in the near future. You can use them as mulch, or depending on what kind of wood they are, in a compost pile. If you don't garden yourself, you could always offer them for free online.

Has anyone on here ever used pallets to make an elevated coop floor?

 

[WthrLady]

you can use stall dry or sweet pdz sold in horse section of farm stores to help now for the odor and ammonia control. After you get things dried out and settled you won't need it. You could put a wood base in there and forget it's there and just allow mulch and manure on top, sure.

 

[aart]

I doubt any kind of 'stink-be-gone' agent is going to work with so much water present.
You need lots of big woods chippings or coarse mulch,
as well as some smaller dry plant matter like straw or dry leaves.

 

[chickenmomma16]

Well, I uncovered my run to loosen the caked poo. We will be getting lots of rain in the next few days so hopefully this will work and “rinse” off some of the chips. Then after recovering it, I was thinking about putting wood pellets down instead of wood shavings.
Thoughts on wood pellets?

It’s puddling but isn’t getting any worse then this