Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Shadrach]

Hopefully you find a way to adress the smelly and wet soil Shad.

I had bad soil in my run too at one point. With a good drainage , enlarging the run space and adding lots and lots of autumn leaves every autumn the soil came back to live.

I did something similar. I dug a very deep hole (my helpful chickens kept filling it in of course) and in the hole I placed a bucket with a lid that was partially filled with rocks.
I cut lots of holes in the bucket, wrapped it in landscape cloth, put it in the hole and filled in with dirt.
The bucket acts like a soak drain. It fills with water underground and leaches the water out slowly through the holes.
Quite effective unless there is a real flood.

I'm going to try something similar. It's the last metre at the front of the run that's last to dry out. It's also a high traffic area. I'm going to try digging a trench a bit back from the front fencline. 300mm wide, or nearest spade width, 400mm deep and line it with drainage cloth, then fill the trench two thirds with gravel and top it off with proper earth from the allotments.

This is the front fence line. It's dried out a lot over the past couple of days.

It's more or less at the front face of the old coop the ground gets drier.

 

[RoyalChick]

I'm going to try something similar. It's the last metre at the front of the run that's last to dry out. It's also a high traffic area. I'm going to try digging a trench a bit back from the front fencline. 300mm wide, or nearest spade width, 400mm deep and line it with drainage cloth, then fill the trench two thirds with gravel and top it off with proper earth from the allotments.

This is the front fence line. It's dried out a lot over the past couple of days.
View attachment 3303424
It's more or less at the front face of the old coop the ground gets drier.
View attachment 3303423

I feel obliged to share the wisdom of landscapers by saying that basic things like berms and ditches that help channel surface water away are by far the most effective thing to do and don't actually require much heaping for the berm or digging for the ditch to make a big difference.
The sunken soak-away is a sort of last resort kind of thing and requires more digging.

 

[Shadrach]

So far I have discovered two half pallets, numerous bits of wood, one concrete fence post base, chicken wire, a few nails, a few pieces of buried platic bags, and some large boulders. I've been told there is probably a whole pallet underneath the crap in the old coop run.
For future reference this is what it's like now.

 

[BDutch]

Ooops - it never does to short change the tax man!
How about Maggie (RIP) and Diana hanging out in the butterfly bush.
Sadly I lost Maggie on Monday and I am missing my chats with her. She was a great conversationalist with strong and eccentric points of view.

View attachment 3302887

And To remember Maggie.

 

[BDutch]

I'm not sure what sharp gravel is, but we have regular gravel (small and medium size) around the place for drainage, at the sides of impervious surfaces and by walls; it's one of the media the chickens commonly scratch through, and we've never had a case of bumblefoot. And earthborn pests and diseases live least long on it (I guess they get washed away quicker than in soil).

Gravel in my language are pieces of broken or split stones with sharp edges. But if I remember right it’s not always sharp in English.

This is how gravel in NL looks like. ^

I used pebbles for drainage, that comes from the river and is without sharp edges. All rounded.

 

[BDutch]

I'm going to try something similar. It's the last metre at the front of the run that's last to dry out. It's also a high traffic area. I'm going to try digging a trench a bit back from the front fencline. 300mm wide, or nearest spade width, 400mm deep and line it with drainage cloth, then fill the trench two thirds with gravel and top it off with proper earth from the allotments.

This is the front fence line. It's dried out a lot over the past couple of days.
View attachment 3303424
It's more or less at the front face of the old coop the ground gets drier.
View attachment 3303423

The holes I made were about 1 meter deep because I had to go through a layer of dense clay/loam that made the water stagnate.

Fyi: We live on a piece of ground here, were once was flowing the Rhine river. Some hundreds or thousands of years ago.

We have layers of sand, peat an river clay. The house needed a foundation of 10 meters to make sure the house would stay upright and not sink down at one side like the tower of Pisa.

Tax payers :

 

[pennyJo1960]

So mine love burying the pavers in front of the old coop.
Took these a hour ago maybe. Girls where happy to see sunshine today.
Next last picture shows the man door and chicken door.
New coop is 10 x 20.

 

[Molpet]

Ooops - it never does to short change the tax man!
How about Maggie (RIP) and Diana hanging out in the butterfly bush.
Sadly I lost Maggie on Monday and I am missing my chats with her. She was a great conversationalist with strong and eccentric points of view.

View attachment 3302887

Sorry for your loss

 

[no fly zone]

Skeksis was letting me know it was (chicken) bedtime.

 

[Shadrach]

In marked contrast here they all are in a rather more suitably sized run.

Clean mite free coop.

I can't help thinking that coop size isn't quite as important in many circumstances as is suggested.