How to prevent coop from getting dusty?

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

Perhaps that's why dusters were made of feathers!

That was my thought when I read it too. Someone smart saw a 2lb chicken shake off 4lbs of dust and thought that was a useful skill in the making

 

[Fluster Cluck Acres]

i can't get pictures right now but i can try to upload some this afternoon. the coop is a repurposed shed thats around 8'x20' if i remember correctly. the first third of it is for supplies and they get access to the other two thirds. i live a couple miles away from DC so its not especially dusty outside and the temps are low 40's high 30's right now.

i had a feeling it was chicken dander because bedding didn't affect it but these chickens are creating a ridiculous amount of dust and it even makes me cough sometimes. but they havent had any reaction to the dust and don't even seem to notice it

Hey there! I have a coop similar in style to yours (Hubs calls it the Shoop- shed coop). And I’m similar geography to you (Frederick, MD). I’ve had this coop for 3 years now, and this winter the dust is AWFUL! So much worse than before. I don’t know what it is- just an accumulation I guess. I’ve used the shop vac, have lots of ventilation, etc… I know chickens are dusty and it’s part of having them, but there have to be some ways to mitigate it somewhat. we’re planning to relocate the food bins outside of the coop so we aren’t pouring/scooping dusty food inside. I’m switching the pdz on my poop board to coffee, but don’t know what to use for bedding beside pine shavings. Did you switch to hemp? I’d love to hear how it’s working.

Right now if I walk into my coop it feels like I just opened and inhaled from a jar of pepper.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

switching the pdz on my poop board to coffee,

I have swapped out bedding on my poop board entirely.

I stapled some recycled feed bags to the surface. On top of that I lay a loose plastic like a top sheet on a bed.

For the top sheet I use something like an old bedding bag or sometimes an old plastic sheet (or a garbage bag) and in the morning the poo is on the loose plastic top sheet. If something has made its way to the surface of the board it dries on the surface of the "wrapping" and is easy to clean

once in a while the loose bag gets dirty with poo, so I wash it, but sometimes that just means laying it on the grass in the rain (and when the loose plastic is an old bag I sometimes just trash it)

I use a old metal dust pan to scrape the poo off the bag. Sometimes I shake it into the bucket to dislodge the little poos.

It means less dust generating materials in the coop. Since it isn't scratch-able, the hens don't throw it in the air by scratching. (Searching for that elusive lost bug)

 

[Frostette]

my coop has a tendency to get extremely dusty no matter what bedding i use. there are 12 chickens and i have tried mulched leaves, pine shavings, and straw to no avail. i have to keep a feather duster in the coop so i can dust off the 1/2 inch of dust that accumilates every few days. my coop has two large ventilation windows on the doors and a smaller rectangular ventilation hole on the rear end about 5 1/2 feet high closer to their roosts. i also open my coop doors and let it air out about once a week.

should i add more ventilation to keep the dust down? would more ventilation even help with the dust? is there any bedding that's actually dust free? im going to try hemp bedding soon (getting it delivered by january), is hemp less dusty? this has been an ongoing problem for years but its getting worse and im worried that its going to start affecting their respiratory tracts so any advice would be much appreciated.

Its amazing how dusty chickens are. I always start my chicks in my house and by the time I can put them outside in their coop (3 weeks or so) the room they are in is a mess! Dust everywhere and on everything. How can something so tiny make such a mess, ha.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

How can something so tiny make such a mess, ha.

Like running a feather duster backwards...