Please help - first timer with chicken

[GoDawgs]

I started gardening for the first time in the early spring and am loving it, and now I think we need chickens to have some fresh eggs along with our veggies!

I'm completely new to this, but have done lots and lots of reading. I want to see if I'm on the right track, and also ask a few questions. I would very much appreciate the help!!

We live in the suburbs and don't have a lot of space, so we want our coop to be as discrete as possible. For this reason I'll be putting our coop on the back patio, directly on the concrete. I have a couple of concerns about this, though:

1) Since it is so close to the house, and we will walk right by it to get to the back yard, I'm worried about the smell; and
2) The patio gets pretty damp when it rains (duh!) But what I mean is that there is typically some standing water - maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch in some spots.

Our coop is a chicken tractor - although it will be stationary. There is a long run with hardware cloth walls and ceiling, and then a nice house/coop. There is no floor to the run part, and it will sit directly on the concrete. I'll have four chicken (I've done lots of research to make sure I get breeds okay with confinement), and they will each have 10 square feet of space.

Questions:

1. Should I keep it directly on the concrete, considering that when it rains there will be standing water in the run? I could build a plywood platform to sit it on, and obviously that will also get wet when it rains, but then the water won't stand.

2. I've decided to use pine shavings as the bedding, but am confused as to where this is supposed to go. Do I put this all over the run and also the coop/house, or just in the house? If it's just in the house, cleaning the run will be really easy as I can just hose it off - but I want my chickens to be happy! It seems like it would get pretty gross to have shavings in the run, though, where they will get all wet when it rains.

3. What can I do to reduce smell? It looks like Stall Dry is a good product to mix in with the shavings. Then I've seen this stuff called Poultry Protector that you spray on the bedding to kill bugs and odor. Then there is also Barn Yard Destroyer and Odor Digester. I'm so confused! I want my coop to be as odorless as possible, and without having to do a ton of work like changing shavings daily and scrubbing it out every week, but I also don't want to go nuts with too many products. Help!

 

[GoDawgs]

I should also add that we'll be getting started pullets, so we will be able to put them directly into the coop. Raising chicks just seemed like too much for our very first time.

 

[2DogsCoop]

I am new to this also and I got started RIR pullets from Murray McMurray and they have been great. One laid an egg in the shipping container and we already got our first egg laid in the coop. It has been a lot of fun and I enjoy hanging out in the coop and run with my new girls. good luck, ask a lot of questions there are some very smart people on this site when it come to chickens.

 

[clio]

Quote:
Hello

If I read correctly, your girls/chickens will be mostly confined to a run, and will not be free ranging in your garden.

Have you considered the bantam sized chickens? They are a lot smaller, still will give you eggs, and are very, very cute! They come in a variety of breeds also. Just a mini-sized chicken.

Keep us all posted!

 

[GoDawgs]

Yes, they will be confined to the run. I thought about bantams, and like the idea except that the eggs are small and they don't seem to be good layers.

 

[GoDawgs]

Okay, after doing more reading, I think I'm going to build a platform for the entire coop and run to go on. Then in rainy weather I will cover the run part with a tarp. So should I do pine shavings through the entire run?

Also, I would still much appreciate advice about keeping the smell as fresh as possible

 

[Baymule]

If there is standing water in the run or coop, it will be messy and smelly. Is there any other place in your yard where you could put the coop?

 

[clio]

Quote:
Hi again,

I don't know what area of the U.S. or world you are located, so I hope a tarp would be OK in the wet weather. Do offer some shade if you are living in desert climates with high summer temperatures.

How long will your run be for four chickens? If you do let them free range a bit in your garden, please remember that you will need to fence off areas where you do not want the chickens to dig, do a dustbath, etc.

I use rice hulls instead of pine shavings for my nest boxes and coop floor. But I do allow my girls to free range during the day.

If you want to be very neat about everything, you will need to somehow prevent the shavings from scattering all over your back patio, etc. Sweeping every evening will help, but you will get remnants of the shavings around.

Will you have a place in the run for them to take a dust bath?

To keep the place smelling as fresh as possible, IMO, I would clean the coop daily of the poop - scrap/scoop off any poop from the floors, the roosts, the nest boxes. You don't want mounds of poop around. You can add more litter if a daily cleaning isn't possible. Make sure there is enough ventilation also. Chickens will not freeze in reasonable cold weather. Keep the water and the feed stations clean also. If you feed fresh veggies, fruit, etc. take out any leftovers. Just use good judgment and common sense.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I would suggest raising the indoor part up so that it will never, ever, even possibly, be wet inside. The usual way to do this, and almost always the best, would be to make it raised up on legs, with run space underneath.

For the run, I would say you have several choices. You will need to put SOME kind of SOMEthing in the run to cushion the chickens' feet and give them something mildly interesting to scratch and dig in -- at least 6" deep and 12" would be a lot better. (Obviously you will need boards on the side to retain this material -- be aware chickens will pile it up against the sides in places, so the grade boards should be at least 2x as high as you plan to fill them.)

If you want to use something organic-y like mulch or nontoxic garden weedings or tree chippings or mulch, then it would really be best to have that raised definitely up above waterlevel. The easiest way to achieve this would be to put in one or two layers of pavers, just laid on the concrete. (I would not suggest you plan on using gravel because it will jsut mix all together with the organic stuff and you'll be back to having skanky organic matter marinating in water

)

OTOH if you want to use something inorganic like sand or gravel or roadbase in the run, you can most likely just use that, period. You may want to spot-clean the run every few days, pick out however much poo you can get; but honestly even if you had something under the gravel to raise it up abovewater, you'd probably need to do that ANYhow if odor/flies are a big issue for you.

2. I've decided to use pine shavings as the bedding, but am confused as to where this is supposed to go. Do I put this all over the run and also the coop/house, or just in the house?

Just in the house; but you need something else in the run.

If it's just in the house, cleaning the run will be really easy as I can just hose it off - but I want my chickens to be happy!

Yeah, you do not want them running around on bare concrete all the time. It is not good for their health and VERY not-good for their happiness.

3. What can I do to reduce smell? It looks like Stall Dry is a good product to mix in with the shavings. Then I've seen this stuff called Poultry Protector that you spray on the bedding to kill bugs and odor. Then there is also Barn Yard Destroyer and Odor Digester. I'm so confused! I want my coop to be as odorless as possible, and without having to do a ton of work like changing shavings daily and scrubbing it out every week, but I also don't want to go nuts with too many products. Help!

The way to keep it odorless is to manually remove the poo as frequently as possible, preferably without an egregious amount of otherwise-perfectly-good bedding going with it. No amount of stall powders or other odor-absorbing agents are going to really get around having a buncha poo sitting around. (I will qualify that. IF you have lots and lots of fresh air AND don't have to sit in that fresh air drinking lemonade every afternoon, there are perfectly-good methods for some situations that do involve letting the poo build up and compost or dry out in place. However those are not good for tiny coops like yours, nor for a patio situation)

I would suggest some kind of droppings board type arrangement, where the poo they produce while sitting on the roost (almost half their total output!) falls onto a basically-bare surface that you can swiftly and painlessly scrape off every morning to take to the compost pile. That helps a LOT. And then spot-clean as much as possible. And, the drier you can keep the coop and run, the fewer objectionable phenomena you will have to contend with

If/when you have problems, then you can sprinkle some stall powder of whatever sort you choose (it doesn't really matter much!) on the problem areas; that is better than trying to slather them around for 'prevention'.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat​