Official BYC Poll: How Do You Keep Your Coop Smelling Fresh?

[DobieLover]

I've never heard of powdered coop fresh nor pdz. I looked it up and can't find it. Anybody know where to get some of these?

Tractor supply or most farm stores. Our local Always carry it too.

 

[aart]

I've never heard of powdered coop fresh nor pdz. I looked it up and can't find it. Anybody know where to get some of these?

Sweet PDZ Stall refresher, granulated.
Buy the horse size bag, rather than the chicken sized one, it's much less expensive.

 

[PopoMyers]

I've never heard of powdered coop fresh nor pdz. I looked it up and can't find it. Anybody know where to get some of these?

Tractor Supply carries this. It is zeolite, and I buy the big 25# bags for horse stalls. https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/brand/Sweet+PDZ

Also called coop refresher, Sweet Coop. More expensive, smaller quantity, same thing.

 

[8CityChicks]

With 11 birds in a gated HOA neighborhood, I have to keep a low profile to avoid complaints. No roosters is easy, a privacy fence is indispensable and woods in the rear help, but the odor control takes more . I clean the roost and litter areas of the house twice daily with spritzered bleach, remove litter twice daily to a compost pile, and sprinkle nests and litter areas monthly with sevin dust. I also use fragranced cat litter in the bin under the roost. My house is all treated wood, so no problems of bleach harming anything. The Chickens free-range most of every day so build up is not a problem. After 10 years, not one complaint of any kind. I do get reports of a wayward BR who finds ways to escape the yard, but neighbors laugh about it , text when she's out or just let her back in, which she willingly agrees to.

 

[Muzical2u]

A thin layer of Sweet PDZ on the poop boards, poop boards scooped daily, hemp bedding on the coop floor, hemp bedding changed out annually, 22 sq ft of year round ventilation with an additional 22 sq ft opened up for warm weather ventilation and probably most significantly, a predator proof run attached to the coop where the pop door is never closed where the chickens immediately retreat to when coming off the roost.
The run is covered with wood chips that get raked about every other month to even them out and everything cold composts in there. I've never removed material from the run. My brother-in-law commented when he entered the coop for the first time "I can't believe it doesn't smell in here."
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What kind of wood chips? I live in eastern NC and we have a lot of rain. Keeping it dry is the problem. Everything I’ve read suggests buying construction sand.

 

[DobieLover]

What kind of wood chips? I live in eastern NC and we have a lot of rain. Keeping it dry is the problem. Everything I’ve read suggests buying construction sand.

They are ramial wood chips from whatever tree species gets put to the curb for collection by the residents. It's a mix of hard and soft woods. Around here that would be oak, maple, ash (not so much since the arrival of the ash borers), poplar, hemlock, white pine, spruce, fir, walnut, etc.

If you have a lot of rain, I strongly suggest a solid roof over your run to keep it as dry as possible.

 

[3KillerBs]

What kind of wood chips? I live in eastern NC and we have a lot of rain. Keeping it dry is the problem. Everything I’ve read suggests buying construction sand.

Mine's mostly pine with some live oak, holly, and sweet gum -- the things the tree service had in the truck when done with my property and the one down the street.

It's not the tree species that matters (though black walnut could be problematic for future use of the compost and large amounts of Eastern Red Cedar would be problematic with insufficient ventilation), but the texture.

If you're on well-drained, sandy ground rainwater ought to flow right through (I'm in the Sandhills, with excessive drainage), but if you're on clay or in a low-lying, poorly-drained area you will need to prioritize managing your drainage because no form of bedding can substitute for good drainage.

 

[gtaus]

With 11 birds in a gated HOA neighborhood, I have to keep a low profile to avoid complaints. No roosters is easy, a privacy fence is indispensable and woods in the rear help, but the odor control takes more . I clean the roost and litter areas of the house twice daily with spritzered bleach, remove litter twice daily to a compost pile, and sprinkle nests and litter areas monthly with sevin dust. I also use fragranced cat litter in the bin under the roost.

Wow! If I had to do that much work to keep chickens, I think I would just buy my eggs at the store. I use the deep bedding system and only clean out my coop twice - a year! I don't think my coop smells at all, but I also don't have any neighbors or an HOA to worry about.

What kind of wood chips? I live in eastern NC and we have a lot of rain. Keeping it dry is the problem. Everything I’ve read suggests buying construction sand.

I have just the opposite approach. I converted my chicken run into a chicken run composting system. It only works if it gets rain to help the composting process. My run never smells, except maybe like a forest floor after a good rain. But my chicken run litter is anywhere from 12-18 inches deep. Mostly, leaves and grass clippings mixed together, but also all the old coop bedding which gets tossed into the run twice a year. It all turns into black gold compost in a matter of months out in the run.

I live on a lake. When I first got poultry, I used dried sand from the lake. It always smelled bad and there was constant cleaning and replacing of the sand. Since I can get all the sand I want for free, I was hoping that it would work for me. It did not.

I much prefer to use dry deep bedding in the coop using wood chips at first, but for the past couple of years I have switched over to using paper shreds which I make at home. Paper shreds have a number of advantages over wood chips including composting faster out in the chicken run. But wood chips worked great in the coop as bedding, as well as leaves, dried grass clippings, etc... I have even mixed different kinds of bedding and the chickens don't care. All free resources where I live. I have not paid for any coop bedding in 4+ years I have had a backyard flock.

If you have a lot of rain, I strongly suggest a solid roof over your run to keep it as dry as possible.

Again, I have the opposite opinion. Since I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system, it's the rain that activates the composting process and creates an environment for all those juicy worms and bugs that the chickens love to scratch up and eat. My commercial feed bill is cut in half in the months that the chickens are outside digging in the chicken run compost.

If you're on well-drained, sandy ground rainwater ought to flow right through (I'm in the Sandhills, with excessive drainage), but if you're on clay or in a low-lying, poorly-drained area you will need to prioritize managing your drainage because no form of bedding can substitute for good drainage.

Drainage is very important. I don't have a drainage problem with in my chicken run composting system. Having said that, my chicken run litter is anywhere between 12-18 inches higher than the surrounding level of the grass lawn. When it rains hard, the compost gets thoroughly soaked, but the top few inches of litter will dry out fast while the lower levels retain the water at a wrung out sponge consistency. That's perfect for composting. Perfect for life in the litter such as worms and bugs that the chickens scratch up and eat all day long.

I don't know if my composting system would work in standing water. But if the area you deal with is low and pools up water in a basin, I would try to fill it with free wood chips as a base and then use the run litter on top. Again, my chicken run litter is 12-18 inches higher than the surrounding level of the lawn. The compost litter drains just fine for me.

Of course, if you have a drainage problem and/or pooling water, the easiest solution might be to move the chicken coop and run to a different place, if possible.