Sweet PDZ

[Calima]

Thanks a million!

 

[Chickalish]

I have used Sweet PDZ all summer since my chicks graduated to the coop. No smell what-so-ever! GREAT STUFF, right? Not so fast! On occasion I sneak out there at night and pick a girl off the roost and snuggle her and put her back and if she flaps a bit the stuff will fill the air so I ventilate by swaying the door back and forth to pull in fresh air and suck that out. I had NO idea to the extent that it hangs in the air until the other night while I was out I heard a bustle in the coop for a sec so I went to see what the fuss was up, opened the door and there was a cloud of it hanging in the air! Not settling on it's own, but just a thick cloud hanging for them to breathe in, so I waited and waited aaaaaaaand waited, and lo and behold it doesn't settle easily let me tell ya.Well I had previously done some reading on chicken lungs and respiratory infections because they have developed a blackening in the nostrils and slight darkening of the beak and some beak crustiness near their little nostrils as well. And you do NOT want to mess with something in the air as their lungs and not designed like ours at all and they can't handle this stuff in the air at all from what I had read. So long story short, I removed it and their nostrils are finally improving, in 2 days I might ad! Ok so tiny poo smell when i scoop in the AM but tha'ts it. I lined my poo board with linolium and feeling much safer now. Not to mention that I actually am liking that I can see what teir poop is all about as opposed to the white coated dried up poo the sweet pdz turned it into so that I couldn't inspect it for anything that might occur in their systems. So there you have it, my opinion on the powder puff called sweet PDZ

 

[yyz0yyz0]

I've had PDZ in my poopboards for 4 years now and it really helps with the smell, just need to clean the poops out regular and it stays pretty fresh.

That being said, PDZ is not a cure all for coop/run smells. It will not cure poor design or lack of maintenance. It will not help much with a poor draining wet muddy run.
Look at it this way, if you have nothing on your poop boards but clean them every morning and your neighbor has PDZ on their poopboards and only cleans it once a month which do you think will have more odor?
My setup is pretty close to the house(which the wife was very apprehensive about), so I try real hard to keep the smells under control. The only place I use pdz is in the poop boards, some of it will make it's way down into the pine chip bedding(which I just changed after 3years of service). I place straw in the run and everytime it rains I try to remove the straw and replace it with fresh.

Keeping things clean and dry is the best practice for keeping the smells down IMHO! I think of PDZ as one more tool in my arsenal along with rakes, shovels, kitty litter scoops, etc etc.

 

[Chickalish]

I do appreciate that so many peeps here seem to love the stuff and advocate hardily for it. I'd just like them to also be aware fo the other side of the coin if they might be interested in knowing that some heath concerns may come along with it's use. That being said, YES it does cut out odor if you wait long periods between coop cleanings. But in cleaning my coop daily it is a very poor choice given the discovery of potential lung damage vs VERY minor morning odor that is remedied in minutes for the rest of the day.

 

[Chipper Chicken]

I do appreciate that so many peeps here seem to love the stuff and advocate hardily for it. I'd just like them to also be aware fo the other side of the coin if they might be interested in knowing that some heath concerns may come along with it's use. That being said, YES it does cut out odor if you wait long periods between coop cleanings. But in cleaning my coop daily it is a very poor choice given the discovery of potential lung damage vs VERY minor morning odor that is remedied in minutes for the rest of the day.

I'm planning on using this on my poop boards too, and what you say concerns me.
Is there any chance you got a bag of the powdered grade instead of the granulated? Thanks.

 

[Chickalish]

I will look in the morning to be sure. It is fine like corn starch if that tells you the difference?

 

[Chickalish]

Well good news perhaps... I couldn't wait so I went out to the Chicken's storage shed with a flashlight.UGH...powder! I hope the results are very different with granular and I imagine they might be. I with that the peeps at the feed store had thought to mention there were 2 kinds since they knew I was getting it for my birds. Hmmm, perhaps they don't know the difference themselves. Well for anyone who has tried both if you can tell me if you have or have not noitced a significant difference in the sort of problem I had this summer that would be helpful to chime in with your opinion about it.

 

[Chipper Chicken]

Although I'm sorry you have the powdered kind, I'm glad you discovered it now.

Yeah, seems like most kids today are more into smartphones than being smart......

If you hadn't mentioned the problem that prompted me to ask, I probably would have forgotten that there were two grades by the time I finally get around to buying it!
Thanks so much for letting me know.

 

[FridayYet]

On my poop boards I use a mix of granulated PDZ, coarse sand, and pelletized gypsum. It gets scooped once or twice a week and the droppings go into the compost pile.

Love it, works well for me, and I would recommend it to others.

 

[Chipper Chicken]

Interesting. How did you arrive at that combination? I would imagine it cuts the cost a bit? Is the pelletized gypsum easy to find? Thanks.