New to backyard chickens! I need help!

[Ted Brown]

Deep litter, for sure. It’s the easiest and can help the coop stay a bit warmer in winter. You just turn it regularly with a shovel.

With respect.

Deep litter (ie. composting in place) is virtually impossible in a coop that has a floor; it can be made to work if the coop floor is dirt but still difficult. Moreover, any heat produced will be overcome by winter temperatures and the chickens are well equipped to deal with temperatures into the -30C/-22F.

 

[Lilybugchick]

Yes.

Mine are actually 10' long and 30" wide, boards because 10' long plywood is spendy. Anything can be used, depends on how many chickens one has (allow 1' per chicken for roost length).

I do not use sand with Sweet PDZ but sift often enough that consumption is low. $15US per bag. I have 26 hens in the coop, I use a bag every two months. PDZ is ground lava or Zeolite. It is porous and because of this absorbs moisture; chicken waste with no moisture is dust (ie no smell!).

Do your chickens eat The PDZ? And does it hurt them? I’ve used it twice and all 12 of my chickens eat it. They have a feeder full of grit but hardly touch it.

 

[Ted Brown]

Do your chickens eat The PDZ? And does it hurt them? I’ve used it twice and all 12 of my chickens eat it. They have a feeder full of grit but hardly touch it.

I do see hens on the drop board pecking away, I assume that some PDZ makes it's way past their beaks. However, not frequent.

Chickens are very good at taking care of themselves and will not eat anything that is not good for them,

 

[Larryslayers0927]

Hi everyone! I found this website after posting on reddit and finding it quite rough someone recommended i posted here, so here i am!
I live in the greater Montreal area, Canada, with my husband and 2 little kids (2 and 4). We're getting 4 hens in 4 days and are currently finishing up building our coop.

I need help with the bedding and all the other details.
My coop is 20 sq feet and the run is 50 sq ft. We can't have more than 5 hens in our town and they cannot free range.

The roof of the run was going to be just the metal wire (heavy duty) but now I'm wondering if I should put a roof?

What kind of bedding would you advise for the coop? I was looking into deep bedding.

What should I put on the ground in the run? I was thinking sand but I'm afraid it'll get gross and wet if there's no roof.
Ideally I want everything as low maintenance as possible. Deep litter possibly?

For feeding, the hens will be 12 weeks old when we get them. The farmer said to give them a feed for growth. Do you agree with that?
For water, i wanted to get a bucket with chicken water nipples. Are those good?

Any other tips would be appreciated! I feel so overwhelmed and pressed with time! View attachment 4134971View attachment 4134972thank you!

That looks great that's perfect for 4 hens they are going to love it. No suggestions still learning myself...

 

[Bawkbok]

I'm late to this party but will let you know what has worked/not worked for us. One of your early questions was sand or deep litter. Your location is SE - where exactly? The local climate has a lot to do with the substrate you choose.

The land where we live is sand so my simple brain thought creating a sand based substrate for the run made sense. We tried it - hated it. Understand I am speaking only of the run, not the coop.
Sand does NOT work in a hot humid climate because it never dries out. It drains well but that is not the same as drying out. It gets gooey and sticks to the chickens' feet and smells bad. A maintenance nightmare. It works in some climates but not this one, at least not for us.

We switched to deep litter and have never looked back. The same as what many others have already mentioned here -- organic matter from your yard, dried leaves, some ash from an outdoor fire pit if you cleanly burn tree debris, compost pile dirt if the compost matter has already broken down. Grass clippings ONLY if they are dried out and if they are cut short, otherwise, I would worry about it clumping in their crop. Never add anything moldy as this could be bad for their health; that goes for leaves and compost matter. If you don't want to eat moldy food, neither do they. We also add an occasional bag of oak bark from a big box store. We have about 6" of dirt. We till it over about once a week by hand - takes 20 minutes and gets me down to ground level with the girls who help me till and we always have a nice conversation while I work.

Some of the poop gets tilled in by me, some by the chickens as they love to scratch in the dirt and sometimes, about 50% of it gets picked up daily (to deter flies). Keep in mind, each chicken poops on average 16 times a day, so lots of organic matter.

Roof your run. If money is an object, consider a tarp and bungee cord it to the run wire. This way you can pull it back on days you want them to have more sun than shade. Our run is full open air with a heavy duty tarp that serves as the roof and stays on permanently. We peel it back as we like -- think sun roof in a car. If your location of SE means you get snow, you will want something more substantial to support the weight of the snow, as others have mentioned.

Our run size is approximately 140 sq. ft. for 4 birds (legal limit). We also have many perches, logs, a tree limb that runs the length of the run. They like places to perch, jump up on, walk under, etc. Since yours will be confined to the coop and run all the time, this will be important. Add a chair that cannot topple, plastic ones from THD are good; they will like it and it will encourage you to stay and visit a while. A large flower pot filled with dirt chicken size for them to lay in, get creative. They will need places / things to do for enrichment. Your waterers and feeders also take up space. Keep this in mind for placement purposes.

Most importantly, have fun!! By now you probably have your chickens and we would all love to see pictures of them in their new digs. Best of luck to you. Welcome to chickening and BYC.

 

[Appalachickens]

Use PDZ on the drop boards, unfortunately you will have to go to a Tractor Supply outlet in the US to get it but worth the drive; buy 10 bags it will last you way more than a year.

Both Amazon and Chewy sell PDZ and will ship to Canada, so that's another option.

 

[Appalachickens]

Welcome! And yes, redditors can be brutal!

My coop has only been occupied for a couple of weeks by the oldest 4 of my 13 girls. I also wanted as low maintenance as possible so I went with deep bedding (not deep litter, which requires a dirt floor) and no poop board. If hemp weren't so expensive, I'd just use it, but I've got 48 SF to cover, ultimately at a depth of 8-12 inches. So instead I have a mix of hemp, pine shavings, and horse stall pellets. No smell at all so far, and I'll add on top as we go. Half my run is covered with a roof and half just hardware cloth, because I want them to have shade and shelter outside, but also for things to be able to decompose and plants to grow. They'll likely eventually eat all the green stuff but I'm hoping the little mulberry tree that was already there will make it. And heck, I live in a temperate rainforest so things grow no matter what you do. I put down fallen leaves and pine bark mulch and will also add to that as we go.The big girls love rooting around in the leaves looking for worms.