Keeping the coop fresh

[chickenana707]

Hi all -
I am getting 6 chickens. I am in a regular neighborhood and have neighbors who live very close. (We all have about 0.3 lot size, as reference). Thankfully nobody behind me because there’s woods/greenspace. One of my neighbors is concerned about the coop being smelly, and something she’ll have to smell everyday when she spends time outside (which… she’s hardly ever outside). Neither of my neighbors hardly are outside. I honestly haven’t given it much thought because I have a couple friends with small backyard flocks and never noticed a smell. Is this something I should worry about? Or maybe she just has a misconception? Any tricks to keeping the coop smell at bay aside from basic cleaning?

 

[nuthatched]

As long as water doesn't collect, basic cleaning should be fine .

 

[DobieLover]

The best things that you can do to ensure that your flocks habitat remains odor free are to keep it dry and to not overpopulate it. Another thing that will go a long way towards keeping the coop fresh is to install poop boards and scoop them out every morning. Dealing with the resultant high manure content waste will be a secondary problem. If you have anybody that lives outside of your neighborhood that likes to compost and would like the high nitrogen content of your chickens droppings that would be a great option for what to do with them. I compost my chicken's waste but I live rurally. When I dump that bucket it smells very badly for a day or two.

 

[chickenana707]

The best things that you can do to ensure that your flocks habitat remains odor free are to keep it dry and to not overpopulate it. Another thing that will go a long way towards keeping the coop fresh is to install poop boards and scoop them out every morning. Dealing with the resultant high manure content waste will be a secondary problem. If you have anybody that lives outside of your neighborhood that likes to compost and would like the high nitrogen content of your chickens droppings that would be a great option for what to do with them. I compost my chicken's waste but I live rurally. When I dump that bucket it smells very badly for a day or two.

Thank you. I have not heard of the poop boards I don’t think so I will look that up. Unless you mean the poop tray in the coop part? Or poop boards in the run. I had considered collecting and using the compost for my own vegetable garden…. Unless you think that would just be too smelly as a regular practice?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It is a legitimate concern but something you can manage. It's not just the coop but can be the run. The problem is when the poop stays wet.

I don't know what your coop will look like. Will it be elevated or on the ground? If it is elevated then the main risk is that the poop builds up thick enough that it won't dry out. This is usually under the roosts so manage the poop and don't let it build up that thick.

If it is at ground level then you want it to drain if any water that gets in and you want to keep ground water out. My coop is at ground level but I put it on a slight rise, added a few inches of dirt to raise it up even higher, and used a berm and swale system on the uphill side to divert any rainwater run-off. Mine stays perfectly dry, even in a heavy downpour.

You need to keep your run as dry as you reasonably can. It needs to be where water drains away from it, not toward it. Covering it will help but rainwater will blow in from the side so it needs to be where it will drain. My run is also on a bit of higher ground and that swale and berm system protects it.

The smaller the space the more the poop will build up. That's another reason I don't like to squeeze them into a minimum sized run or coop, I don't have to work as hard. But a lot of people are adding, replacing, or raking bedding in the coop or run or using a scoop to remove clumps of poop to help manage the poop build-up. Some people turn their run into a compost pile. In certain conditions that works well but if it stays too wet too long it can stink. We all have different conditions so different things work.

As Dobie mentioned, what do you plan to do with the excess poop? I also compost mine but I mix it in so it's not as thick, it isn't a problem. But I can appreciate that 2 days of stink if it is thick and wet. If you store it so it gets or stays wet it can stink and draw flies. Some people put it in the garbage. Some gardeners would be glad to collect it so they can compost it.

I don't know what all of your options are, we all have different conditions. But if you can keep it dry it should not be a problem.

 

[fldiver97]

I had chickens in a similar situation, residential neighborhood. I told the neighbors they were coming. One elderly couple was very concerned but a) they were legal except for roosters b) their compost pile was right up by my fence and c) I explained the limited number of chickens I had (5) in the beginning and that they would have appropriate housing and a clean environment. Keeping the coop dry is important, DobieLover mentioned the poop board. It works great. A flat board 12-18 inches below the roost, attach a small board to act as a lip and fill it with sweet PDZ, StallDri, hemp bedding etc. Scoop it in the morning like a flat big litter box and throw the poop in the compost pile. I never had issues with smell, nobody ever complained about the chickens and some of the neighbors would even come and visit the chickens when they were free ranging in the fenced in yard.

 

[StinkyAcres]

Yep, it's wet poop in wet soil/litter that stinks. A covered run with good drainage that is cleaned regularly, as well as poop boards in the coop as was previously mentioned, should help to keep the smells down. If you decide to compost the droppings, covering them with dry "browns" (straw, wood chips, dried leaves, etc.) will keep the smell down and allow the droppings to compost effectively.

What is your general location? Chickens need 4-10 square feet of coop floor space per bird to be happy and the colder it gets in your area the more coop space they'll want.