Official BYC Poll: Do You Wear a Mask or Respirator When Cleaning Your Coop?

[AGeese]

If it weren't for allergies... you allergy free people don't know how good you got it.

That said ever since I noticed the multitude of particles in floating through the sunbeams in the garage (aka their coop), I'll never do deep breathing excercises like punching the heavy bag in there again.

Saw dust gets me too. This me when I'm doing a cleanout and or cutting up wood with the circular saw

Spoiler

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[Folly's place]

To all you folks who think it's just fine in that dust, because you aren't in trouble right now, see how you're doing later, as in years down the road. Lung damage is cumulative, and can get you later. Ask how some of us know this...
Mary

 

[BDutch]

To all you folks who think it's just fine in that dust, because you aren't in trouble right now, see how you're doing later, as in years down the road. Lung damage is cumulative, and can get you later. Ask how some of us know this...
Mary

Depends on the why.
In general: if lung cells are damaged and healthy lung cells remain, these healthy cells multiply and replace the damaged lung cells.
But if you have a lung disease like pulmonary fibrosis or lung scars this won’t happen.

 

[Folly's place]

And these things happen over time.
Mary

 

[AGeese]

I always air out the garage as often as the weather permits. There's two gable vents, and this summer I'm adding an exhaust fan with a thermostat. But yeah when I first started raising chickens I setup playsand in tubs for their dustbath. That was a killer, had me weezing. No more playsand dust baths. I'm washing and drying some pea gravel now. I can't get anything smaller without silica in it that I'm aware of.

 

[skeeeter]

Here in our warm(hot) climate, our chicken house(coop) has three solid sides with vents and one whole side, facing East, in chainlink. I've had to put tinroofing around the bottom of the wire because of dogs and vermin come snooping by and spooking the fowl.
I used 2 pallets for support and installed 3-4" tree branch roosts and a "droppings board" , under which, we have the nests.
Through the middle of the house we stretched chicken wire which together with one of the support pallets forms a half wall.
The water bucket and "rainy day" feeder are in the front half, that is where I dump in their leaves and coarse hay to scratch.
I get hardly any dust. Maybe it's because rain can blow in onto the bedding before it gets scratched back to the "bedroom area", where I rake aside coarse material and take the fines to the garden.
But... if my chicken house were dusty, like my grandpa's milo & corn crib used to be, I def. WOULD use protection.
If you can see dust clouding the sunbeam... you should be wearing a mask.
Sorry that was so long.
Cheers!