INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[birdman55]

5 chicks hatched...and hawk is back in with the flock

 

[Leahs Mom]

This might be a nice tool for you gardeners...a Garden Planning Tool:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/gard...utm_campaign=1.14.15 SLCS eNews#axzz3Op4RpDxR

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:
I had read some research that seemed to indicate that sand was more conducive to propagation of cocci so I decided to steer clear of it.

I've known some folks that were having repeated batches of chicks getting cocci overload on sand and once it was removed and replaced with shavings or wood chips, they didn't continue having the problem with subsequent hatches.

So...just putting that out there FYI.

 

[minmin1258]

My girls must have enjoyed being able to get out and move around today. They rewarded me quite nicely this evening with these: Made me happy today for sure! Oh (

Brad Selig) the Pullet I got from you at Chickenfest, the one I thought was a cockerel because I thought it crowed, lol, is broody and just hatched out two LF eggs. There's one more egg in there but I don't think it's going t hatch. Will post pics in a day or two. Your birds have been good for my flock! Thank You!!!

Wow - what good girls! Is that a chicken platter under all those eggs?

Yes it is. From the Paula Dean collection...love it!!!

 

[chickiebaby1]

General question: How many of you have sand floors for your coops, and how deep and what kind of sand is needed (I know there have been discussions about sand type in the past, and I could indeed search and find it, but I might as well ask again!)?

What do you use as a pooper scooper?

I'm not sure it would work with our setup. The coop is rectangular and right now dirt plus straw plus chicken poop (we do a big dig-out once a year to get as much old junk out as possible). The henhouse is inside the coop, but elevated about 3 feet off the floor of the coop, and it has a wood floor with straw right now.

Those of you who use sand, is that all you use? No straw? Because I know if I left straw in the henhouse, it will wind up all over the place. Most will stay in the henhouse, but some will make its way to the floor of the coop. Since both are straw, it does not matter now.

I would really like to make poop removal easier than it is now. The only darned good thing about freezing cold weather is the poop doesn't smell and is easier to remove (as long as you have a hoe or sharp implement to hack it off where it has stuck to something else).

Our birds poop a lot more in the henhouse in the winter--maybe it's because they are in there longer instead of outside in the chickenyard, since of course we all know chickens despise snow. They actually poop more in the henhouse than on the coop floor, which is 3 times larger in area. You'd think they could do me a favor and at least spread it around.

I'm just wondering if we could make sand work on the floor of the coop (probably yes) and maybe in the henhouse, too? Do you "sand people" put it in the henhouse as well? No straw anywhere?

Sorry to sound stupid. I've just never seen one in person, and it's not within my veterinary medicine knowledge base. I just want to know as much as possible, since it will be a pain to have the sand hauled back there (plus the primary expense of putting it in the first time). I'm sure it has to be partially replenished periodically. But I wonder whether it's worth it, both from a cost and ease of use perspective. We have about 35 birds right now in three enclosures, each with an elevated henhouse inside the coops.

THANK YOU ALL in advance for trying to educate me on the pluses and minuses of sand bedding vs. straw.

We use sand in our big coop (20 or so) on the poop board under the roost and it has been a God send. Love it. It makes cleanup so much easier. I use a kitty litter pooper scooper to clean it up almost everyday, or if I can't get to it that often( because of school) i can just use a hoe and scrap it right off into a big plastic tote box and then I just dump it in the garden. The floor of the coop is shavings and straw right now, which I can just open the big doors and sweep out when I need to. In one of our other smaller coops everything is sand, even the run and it has turned out to be the cleanest and less smelly of all the other runs. I do have to say though that I did not like the sand for new chicks, but I do not generally put new chicks out with the others till they are about 3 months old, by then they do fine and I haven't noticed any problems. Also we use the sand that you get at the landscaping place, not play sand. Hope that helps.

 

[minmin1258]

My girls must have enjoyed being able to get out and move around today. They rewarded me quite nicely this evening with these: Made me happy today for sure! Oh (

Brad Selig) the Pullet I got from you at Chickenfest, the one I thought was a cockerel because I thought it crowed, lol, is broody and just hatched out two LF eggs. There's one more egg in there but I don't think it's going t hatch. Will post pics in a day or two. Your birds have been good for my flock! Thank You!!!

Wow - what good girls! Is that a chicken platter under all those eggs?

Yes it is. From the Paula Dean collection...love it!!!

Sorry about that Monsanto thing, don't know where in the heck that came from! Must have hit "copy" when I was reading that article then somehow hit "paste" while I was typing this up... Darn FAT FINGERS!!!!

 

[chickiebaby1]

We use sand in our big coop (20 or so) on the poop board under the roost and it has been a God send. Love it. It makes cleanup so much easier. I use a kitty litter pooper scooper to clean it up almost everyday, or if I can't get to it that often( because of school) i can just use a hoe and scrap it right off into a big plastic tote box and then I just dump it in the garden. The floor of the coop is shavings and straw right now, which I can just open the big doors and sweep out when I need to. In one of our other smaller coops everything is sand, even the run and it has turned out to be the cleanest and less smelly of all the other runs. I do have to say though that I did not like the sand for new chicks, but I do not generally put new chicks out with the others till they are about 3 months old, by then they do fine and I haven't noticed any problems. Also we use the sand that you get at the landscaping place, not play sand. Hope that helps.

here is a pic of our set up. you can see the poop board in the first one and then the bottom one shows how I can just sweep it all out.

 

[birdman55]

great idea

 

[Faraday40]

I had read some research that seemed to indicate that sand was more conducive to propagation of cocci so I decided to steer clear of it.

I've known some folks that were having repeated batches of chicks getting cocci overload on sand and once it was removed and replaced with shavings or wood chips, they didn't continue having the problem with subsequent hatches.

So...just putting that out there FYI.

I've been watching & haven't seen any signs of cocci. Although, I've also never had chicks in there. I brood in the garage then move to a separate chicken tractor. If I ever do have problems, I suppose sand can be washed & dried out in the summer sun. (Again not sure if that would work for big flocks.) We've usually had some backyard building project requiring sand, so I use what's on hand & buy new for the chickens.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Re: Sand.

I used sand for a good two years or so. I used regular construction grade sand as others have noted. It was very easy to quickly scoop with a kitty litter scoop. Took me no more than 10 minutes every morning. The down side to this is that it got pretty nasty if I skipped a day, so it pretty much had to be scooped every day without fail. Sweet PDZ helped, but I still wouldn't go more than two days without scooping--it just didn't work out well if I did. This was with around 35 hens at a time, I think.

It was very, very, exceptionally dusty! There was a thick layer of dust on everything in the coop after I scooped and it would stick everywhere. I would get the dust in my hair, on my clothes, etc., and had to shower and change after scooping or be covered with dust for the rest of the day because it just didn't come off otherwise. I reached a point where I had to wear a respirator when I was scooping it because otherwise I would spend hours afterward coughing. This was the big reason I decided to switch to shavings in the coop. It occurred to me that if it was this bad on my lungs, it couldn't be good on my birds' lungs!

The girls didn't seem to like it much in the wintertime, either, and I suspect it's because it seemed quite cold. They rarely stayed in the sand for long on the coldest days, preferring to stay on the perches or on the nests--which was another mess. With the shavings, they are down scratching and exploring, as well as snuggling down into the bedding when they're just hanging around. On the plus side, sand was very nice inside for summertime because they had a nice, cool place to dustbathe when they wanted to.

It did a good job of drying droppings out and when droppings were coated with sand, they didn't stick to my scoop no matter how nasty of a dropping they were. The sand on its own didn't have much of a smell when dry, but after some use, it smelled very strong of ammonia when it got wet. That meant on days when we had really strong wind and rain and it got in the coop, the coop stank until it dried. Often, too, the sand would compact instead of drying into sand again, and I would have to break it apart. This didn't happen often--but it happened often enough for me to remember it. I might add also, when I tried putting it outside, because of how my chicken yard is, any heavy rain would wash it away. It was totally useless for me in the yard. That, of course, depends on how your yard is. Mine is slightly downhill from the coop and has no roof.

I don't know on the disease part of it whether it was good or bad, but my girls didn't seem sickly. Still, I personally will be sticking to shavings. The price is a bit higher and it takes a bit more work (depending on how you use it), but it just seems healthier than all of that dust in the air, and it smells so nice and fresh when I open a new bale! That's my assessment on the topic, anyway.