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I'll respectfully dispute this statement. If this were true there are millions of chickens all over the world with respiratory failure.
Ammonia smell happens and the only way you know it happens is when you smell it....then you correct it. If you cannot smell it, then you don't know when to add fresh shavings, fluff the existing shavings and check the moisture content of your DL by grabbing a handful and feeling of it.
You don't have to remove your waterer from your coop...just place it up on cement blocks and out of the chips. Easy, peasy!
While I see your point, my point is: average person is 5' tall plus or minus and if you cam walk into your coop and smell ammonia at head level then your birds, standing at knee level, will be in a much higher concentration for a much longer period of time if they enjoy playing in their chips as mine do. Ventilation is key, yes, but catching an overabundance of ammonia at 3' high is much healthier than at 5' high.
Making a blanket statement that they will go into respiratory failure at ammonia levels at that high a concentration is patently false, IME. Have you ever really been on a farm? Ammonia smell is the fragrance you will most likely smell above all else. Chickens have been raised in that for thousands of years and I've never once, in all my life heard of any chickens going into respiratory failure over ammonia concentrates. Drive by any commercial broiler or layer house and see if you can't smell it from your car...and the birds still live. Millions of them survive to make it to your McNuggets.
Yeah...it isn't the best, but it does happen and birds do not go into respiratory failure over it. If they do, their systems were somehow already compromised.
I'll respectfully dispute this statement. If this were true there are millions of chickens all over the world with respiratory failure.
Ammonia smell happens and the only way you know it happens is when you smell it....then you correct it. If you cannot smell it, then you don't know when to add fresh shavings, fluff the existing shavings and check the moisture content of your DL by grabbing a handful and feeling of it.
You don't have to remove your waterer from your coop...just place it up on cement blocks and out of the chips. Easy, peasy!
While I see your point, my point is: average person is 5' tall plus or minus and if you cam walk into your coop and smell ammonia at head level then your birds, standing at knee level, will be in a much higher concentration for a much longer period of time if they enjoy playing in their chips as mine do. Ventilation is key, yes, but catching an overabundance of ammonia at 3' high is much healthier than at 5' high.
Making a blanket statement that they will go into respiratory failure at ammonia levels at that high a concentration is patently false, IME. Have you ever really been on a farm? Ammonia smell is the fragrance you will most likely smell above all else. Chickens have been raised in that for thousands of years and I've never once, in all my life heard of any chickens going into respiratory failure over ammonia concentrates. Drive by any commercial broiler or layer house and see if you can't smell it from your car...and the birds still live. Millions of them survive to make it to your McNuggets.
Yeah...it isn't the best, but it does happen and birds do not go into respiratory failure over it. If they do, their systems were somehow already compromised.
