Smelly chicken coop..need help!!

[bobby d]

We had chickens for about a year now. We just haven't been able to figure out how to control the smell and nastiness when it rains. The flies are horrible and when we step into the coops we sink. I feel bad for our chickens I'm sure their not happy being in that stuff after it rains. Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Qi Chicken]

What do you have on your floor? Is it nasty inside the coop or in the run? Lots more info then you will get help. Pine shavings work best in the coop at least 4 inches deep. If you have a dirt floor that will not work. Sand in the run is the way to go usually.

 

[Dorte]

It is hard to answer without a description of what you currently have

 

[bobby d]

The runs is the issue and they are dirt floors. We put down cedar chips but just a thin layer. We clean out the runs every other month. Not sure if that's what we're suppose to do but we do.

 

[honeychild903]

I put sand in my coop due to having dirt floor. I keep shavings down untill I know it is going to rain then I rake them up before the rain if possible. Then the sand keeps the water from standing and being muddy. Once the floor is dry again, I put clean shavings back down. I also put diametaceous earth in with the shavings. Helps with odor too and any bugs on chickens. I also have read to hand the vanilla car deoderizers in coop for flies for repellant. Good luck.
Lots of rain in Texas this month

 

[emvickrey]

My coop does the same thing. For the flies I buy those bags that you add some water to and this thing in it melts and lets off an awful stink. It smells like yeast. Anyway, I hang it on a tree branch near the coop opposite the side of the doors. It attracts the flies to it and less go to the coop. You don't want to hang it where you will be walking near it or where it will be up or down wind of where you regularly go because it is putrid in the heat. I usually change the bag for a new one a couple times because it holds alot. Some people use fly strips but if something's gonna get stuck in it, it will be me. As for the wet floor, pray for heat to dry it up is all I can say for that. I had tried laying straw down but that made it worse. We laid down used shingles one year and it seemed to help but they will slid and you can fall. This year I bought a couple bags of cat litter from Dollar General. The cheap stuff that is really just gravel. That seems to work well in the problem areas. My hens dig in a couple spots and make deep holes and I just rake the gravel back in the holes. The rest I just let the elements dry it up. We did have a flood in one side of the coop where the pullets had dug a small area from the run into the coop that I didn't notice and the water was like a river running into the coop. I had to go out in the storm and dig a hole from inside the coop, under the wall and then outside the coop to drain the water off. I then put one of those red bricks that has 2 holes in in, in the hole under the wall to close it from anything that large getting in and I put 2 PVC pipes in the holes to further prevent predators during the night till I could do beter repairs. After it dried up I replaced the dirt in the hole but I left the brick and pipes. We'll see how it works next rain. I fixed the hole the pullets made so there shouldn't be another river running through the coop anyway.
If y ou can put a fan in ther pointing at the ground it may help dry it up.

 

[HudsonValleyGirl]

If I know it is going to rain, I prepare for it. I put down shavings, because I too have a dirt floor. I really don't want a sand run, it isn't for me. After it rains, I rake out the run. I clean my run every other day. I rake out the poop and ad DE. For my coop, I clean out the poop every day, or every other day, and I replace the shavings once per week.

 

[elmo]

Wet chicken poop smells. So to control the smell, you need to keep your run drier and/or clean up more of the chicken poop.

You can consider roofing/tarping your run so that it stays drier when it rains. You can consider putting down a layer of sand, which helps dry out the droppings as they land and also makes it easy to pick up droppings using a sand or kitty litter scoop.

I have roofed runs and sand in them. I pick up obvious droppings daily and compost them. No smell, no flies.

 

[chicmom]

I'll tell ya, I had that same problem, and then we cleaned out that run, let it dry, and filled it with a load of sand. No more problems. I rake it out every couple of days. I also kind of spot scoop with a kitty litter scoop the big poos--just takes a few minutes each evening. And no more smell!

And no more mud! It's been great since we got that sand in there.

 

[Sweet Violet]

I use a doggy pooper scooper and even the neighbors say that they've never smelled a thing. I do a walk through every day after work!