NEED HELP ANYTHING COUNTS !!!

[chicklover 1998]

I have a choice of either any heritage breeds or bovan browns (sex links )

RIR are sweet those would be a good choice this page has a good list of good heritage breeds

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/heritage-chicken-breeds-zmaz76jmazhar.aspx

 

[Hope1122]

If you have flies you could get this fly trap from places like TSC. It traps the flys in if you are worried about that. I have a lot of flies where I live in the summer and it helps alot

 

[Urbanfarmer26]

Thanks. We Always get a good amount of black flies .

 

[Eps32]

So after ordering 2 baby chicks from the local feed store there is only 2 weeks left until they hatch. And now my husband and family are completely against chickens !!! My husband who's brother has chickens, coop smells really bad and In the summer there would be a horrific stench and also tons of flies . So now there thinking that my coop will stink. They were planning on throwing away my supplies but I hid them around the garage . I really want to have the chickens and I don't mind cleaning but I still want to avoid the muck and stench in the summer any advice on how to convince them . And also how to maintain a coop in a very very rainy climate such as western canada

My coops never stink like you described that shouldn't happen. I clean maybe 10 min every day and a hard good cleaning every month or two. Flies iv never had a problem with either don't know why maybe it's my Guineas . They eat just about every bug they get there beaks on. If you run your coop properly then you won't have a problem. If you think you can just throw chickens in there with food. And let them live without tending to them then you'll have problems.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Agree with all of the above. I clean my coops out once, maybe twice a year (deep litter method-a flock of 12 in one coop, and flock of 5 in the other. Not counting my brooders). The only real regular maintenance I do is cleaning out from under the roosts weekly and turning the bedding over to keep it properly mixed. It smells like pine shavings and dirt in my coops. The key to a stink free coop is to keep it dry and well ventilated. If your roof is leaking or if wind is blowing rain in, you'll get smell no matter how often you clean.

As for flies, you'll pretty much have some amount of flies no matter the methods you use to manage them. Again, keeping things dry will greatly reduce their population. A bunch of wet poop and bedding makes an excellent breeding ground for them.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

my wife's first husband had chickens when they were married and they stunk real real bad. He just built them a coop/run, provided food and collected eggs. That coop/run was nasty.

So obviously when I wanted chickens she was not thrilled, then when I wanted to place the coop near the house she was really worried. But now that all is said and done she is really surprised at how odor free a properly maintained coop/run can be. I don't have a covered run so rain and some stink when it rains is an issue but that's it, only after a rain is there odor. luckly we don't get tons of rain. I keep bales of straw/hay around and every few weeks I throw a portion of one into the run and the girls tear it apart and spread it around. When it gets pretty chopped up by them I rake it out which takes a lot of poop with it and replace it with new. This also happens after a rain.

Inside I had planned on deep litter method and poop boards, well that didn't work out as I planned. In fact it worked out better, with poop boards my pine chips only need changed every two years or so. They stay dray and odor free because I have the poop boards.


The two biggest things I can recommend to keep odor down is poop boards cleaned often and a dry run with some type of organic material that can be removed and refreshed.

 

[daxigait]

I use poop boards with 4-1 play sand and sweet pdz. I clean it out ounce a week because of my 60+ hour work weeks, and it is great. If you could do it more it would work very well.