Smelly Land

[Vellie]

It's my first year in the new home and in my yard I have a coop. I used the deep litter method on my chickens and from the winter feedings a lot of the shavings that fell out are now a soggy SMELLY MESS!!! With the constant rain we've been having it has just made a bad situation much worse. My questions are A. what should I do with the heap of smelly shaving's once we dig it all up?, and B. What can I do to take the smell away that's left in the soil around the coop once its all shoveled out? We are supposed to have a couple hours of good weather and I want to take advantage. Please respond with any ideas ASAP, and THANK YOU ahead of time.

 

[aggie9296]

if you don't compost, you could at least dig a hole and bury the stuff. lime on the area with reduce smell.

 

[mandelyn]

I just went through this too and made it worse by tilling up the run. Apparently, the place I chose for the coop is a water collection point and has ground water too, when we set post holes for the perimeter fence, didn't take long for the bottom foot to fill with water. Better place for a well than a chicken coop.

We have a compost pile, so I dug a hole in the middle of it and filled it with the gross wet stuff. My bedding plan was perfect until we got 13 inches of rain total for the last month.

We're going to put a roof over the run, my sand hasn't had a chance to dry out at all and it only works if it's dry, every not-rainy day I'm out there stirring it up with a hand tiller to keep it loose, otherwise it would get hard as a rock.

Good thing the coop is elevated, or the whole bottom would have flooded!

Now, to get those wheelbarrow ruts out of the yard...

The good news is, we got ducks (what else would you do with a flooded yard?) and they are loving life with all the worms. They even taught the chickens how to browse in 2 inches of water in the grass for food. It's amusing, the ducks start going to town in a wet spot and all the chickens run over to see what the fuss is.

 

[LeezyBeezy]

Ugh, sounds nasty. I hope the composting part works out. We had over 4 feet of snow this winter, so they grounds been pretty wet. But, we are lucky that is drains well, esp. here in Maine (so close to sea level). I like the idea of the ducks showing the chickens how to fish!!

 

[CMV]

I use lime on the especially smelly stuff. Ag lime works, but if you can keep every living creature out of it for a few rains hydrated lime works amazingly well. Hydrated lime is a bit dangerous in that it is corrosive and can cause chemical burns to anything playing around in it. I usually use it in areas where no one will be for a couple weeks or 3 good rains- whichever comes first. I used to have pigs. You don't know stink until you've had them around for a while. When I rotated pens I would dump hydrated lime on the old areas. Worked a charm! The stench died down very quickly.

Good luck.

 

[cobrien]

i have my compost in a bin as i don't have much space. I'd throw that muck in a bin, or pile a few inches at a time, and layer it (lasagna style) with freshly dug soil (=full of microbes) and some "browns" - fresh shavings, newspaper, leaves. i'd let it sit a week at least before adding water. water 1x/week and it will compost. stir it/turn it once a month and you get compost faster. i'm not a compost expert - i just throw stuff in and it happens slowly in its own time but there are ways of doing it even faster. with all the chicken poop (a "green" compost ingredient, as is green yard waste, veggie scraps) that goes in my compost mine can get out of balance (need browns too = wood chips, leaves, paper), so I use soil, wood chips, paper, coconut husks...whatever i can find and add this if/when it smells, and try to layer browns when i add greens.

 

[mulewagon]

One thing I do is have a covered feeding station out in the run. That way the feed doesn't rot in the bottom of the coop, which is the source of the worst smells!

And I gave up on bedding in the run. It's just dirt now - I'm going to try sand later.

 

[Vellie]

We cleaned out the nasty smelly stuff yesterday and it dried out a bit, but we are supposed to get rain again tonight. We are putting some drainage in around the coop and the pen, hoping that helps. I was going to put baking soda on the soil before lying the stones down for drainage. The smell is still in the land and was going to put sweet pdz on the soil but the bag says animals can't eat it so we are going to do the trusty ol' baking soda.