- Mar 9, 2014
- 8
- 0
- 7
We live in the north part of Houston and we have literally had weeks of rain every day. Apparently, where our house sits, used to be a lake or something but everyone has yards about an inch high with water that is just not draining with all this rain. We converted part of our garage into a chicken coop. It is about 4 feet by 10 feet and fairly dry. So at least they have one place that stays relatively dry. Now, if only they would stay in it! Bot, oh no, they have to all be outside getting rained on! My poor chickens are looking more like drowned rats than chickens at this point!
We do have a completely soaked (and extremely stinky - I mean truly RANK) chicken run. It's a good 15 feet by 20-25 feet. Normally, we can let the chickens out into our fenced backyard to run and get out of the mess of the chicken run when it gets like this but even our backyard is soaked with standing water.
We also have two dogs. One is an enormous bullmastiff that could really care less what the chickens do but our other dog is an American Foxhound and he does just about anything to get to those chickens. It is just his nature. We have electric fencing on the outside of the chicken run to keep him out. Obviously, it is not turned on right now!
But the problem is that I have to keep the dogs inside and there is no dry spot for my poor chickens anywhere. How do we give these birds a dry spot in the backyard? How in the world are we ever going to get the chicken run clean??? What can we use? Should we throw a bunch of hay around or will that just make the problem worse? HELP! I literally had to build a bridge with wood so the chickens could walk from the run to the backyard. My poor bantam frizzles are going to have to learn to swim if the rain doesn't stop.
P.S.
Our backyard is about a half acre and literally NO dry area.
We do have a completely soaked (and extremely stinky - I mean truly RANK) chicken run. It's a good 15 feet by 20-25 feet. Normally, we can let the chickens out into our fenced backyard to run and get out of the mess of the chicken run when it gets like this but even our backyard is soaked with standing water.
We also have two dogs. One is an enormous bullmastiff that could really care less what the chickens do but our other dog is an American Foxhound and he does just about anything to get to those chickens. It is just his nature. We have electric fencing on the outside of the chicken run to keep him out. Obviously, it is not turned on right now!
But the problem is that I have to keep the dogs inside and there is no dry spot for my poor chickens anywhere. How do we give these birds a dry spot in the backyard? How in the world are we ever going to get the chicken run clean??? What can we use? Should we throw a bunch of hay around or will that just make the problem worse? HELP! I literally had to build a bridge with wood so the chickens could walk from the run to the backyard. My poor bantam frizzles are going to have to learn to swim if the rain doesn't stop.
P.S.
Our backyard is about a half acre and literally NO dry area.
We do have pallets everywhere. Luckily, the company my husband works at just throw them away, so ever so often, he brings a truckload of them home. But even they are starting to rot and get mushy. If I could just control the weather. 
