Texas

[PhantomChikkinz]

As a kid we used to catch red ears and the epoxy bottle caps or pennies on their shells and let them go. You could identify them for years! Had one in a pond behind the house that was "tagged" when I was about 8 or 9 years old...I caught him again while I was on college! He was at least 10 years old.

That is AWESOME!

 

[jajeanpierre]

Oh no! I will look at the website closely. I have heard bad things about the deep liter method also so what is the best, safest way to go?

I just clean regularly. I have horses, and I would be furious if my horse's stalls weren't thoroughly cleaned daily and picked throughout the day. I think the "deep litter method" is more a justification for not doing a thorough job. Just my 2 cents.

 

[jajeanpierre]

This is what I am using but still takes a long time

There's a real skill to working a fork. I've mucked a lot of stalls in my life but was surprised at how clumsy I was mucking my first stall after 20 years. I rake works well to remove straw but leave the sand. Watch the grooms rake a shedrow at a racetrack--they can get every single blade of hay or staw off that sand and leave a beautiful herringbone pattern in the sand to boot.

 

[mi2bugz]

There's a real skill to working a fork.  I've mucked a lot of stalls in my life but was surprised at how clumsy I was mucking my first stall after 20  years.  I rake works well to remove straw but leave the sand.  Watch the grooms rake a shedrow at a racetrack--they can get every single blade of hay or staw off that sand and leave a beautiful herringbone pattern in the sand to boot.

Dang! Where do I sign up for that class lol. Ok gotcha...I need more practice.

 

[mi2bugz]

I just clean regularly.  I have horses, and I would be furious if my horse's stalls weren't thoroughly cleaned daily  and picked throughout the day.  I think the "deep litter method" is more a justification for not doing a thorough job.  Just my 2 cents.

What are you using in your coop? hay/straw, pine shavings? I will have to research other methods and the techniques. Thank you for the help!

 

[hungnguyen]

Just wake up at 3 and don't know if i should sleep again or go to work early.

Maybe I just wake Lisa up. Lisa, I caught a skunk, come see.

 

[TexasLisa]

Just wake up at 3 and don't know if i should sleep again or go to work early.

Maybe I just wake Lisa up. Lisa, I caught a skunk, come see.

Hung, did you really catch a skunk? Maybe you didn't shower after coming home from the farm yesterday??? Are you caught up on your rest yet?

Have a great day everyone!

Lisa

 

[hungnguyen]

Actually my partner caught a possum yesterday.

Good morning everyone and Lisa... it's Monday with a long week ahead.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Dang! Where do I sign up for that class lol. Ok gotcha...I need more practice.

The fork someone posted a picture of is a shavings fork. I don't think you need the welded wire. There's a little toss you give the loaded ford and all the sand falls out but leaves the big stuff in the fork. It take practice. In the end, rake with one of those flexible little metal tine rakes, and use the rake to pick up the last few bits of straw, again a little toss with the rake gets the sand out. That's how you get a completely perfectly raked shedrow with not a single stray piece of straw, manure and hay in the ailse that racehorse grooms take great pride in. It takes practice. I have the utmost respect for track workers. I've never met a more dedicated group of society's misfits who work 7 days a week, starting work at 4:00 or 5:00, often still working late in the night if the track has night racing, often battling severe alcohol/drug issues,mental health issues, criminal records and often just plain intellectual issues. They are a very unique and colorful community.

Can you tell, I haven't been to the track to visit my horses for a long time?

 

[jajeanpierre]

What are you using in your coop? hay/straw, pine shavings? I will have to research other methods and the techniques. Thank you for the help!

Personally, I love shavings as a bedding but I have two Cochins that seem to get a contact dermatitis from pine shavings. Both these birds are "frazzles" which mean they carry two copies of the frizzle gene. Frizzles--those magnificent curly-feathered birds--has only one copy of the frizzle gene. Two copies make the feathers thin, brittle and easily damaged at all stages. Below is a picture of my Kitchen Chicken Cochin. She is naked from the damage an apron did to her back and thighs. The neck feathers just fell apart from the two weeks I allowed the cockerels in with the bantam pullets. I think these two birds react badly to the shavings because their skin is inherently fragile. The downside of shavings is they take a long time to decompose. When the manure part of the shavings has decomposed, I think they will make a mulch. I can always use more mulch, and free mulch is my favorite kind of mulch.

Below is a picture of the Kitchen Chicken who is producing eggs 6 or 7 days a week in my kitchen, sitting on top of my pit bull's crate. I think I need to put a dark cover on her box to slow her egg productions down--I think the double-copy frizzles are just too fragile a bird to have that much strain put on them.



Here she is three months ago. I can keep her like this if she lives alone in basically a padded box with no one ever picking her up or touching her feathers.



I've been using a really nice soft meadow hay as bedding. I like it in the nest boxes. I don't clean as often as my above posts might lead you to believe, but once a week I pull everything out and sweep the floor. I sprinkle Diatomaceous Earth--don't know if it does any good, but it can't hurt . I also add hay on top, every day or two, a sort of abbreviated deep litter method. If there is a whiff of ammonia or odor, the coop is immediately cleaned. Nothing has to be spotless. You are just removing most of the manure and soiled bedding. Dampness, dust and ammonia are your enemies.

I like hay because it composts more easily than the savings. I won't ever use moldy hay or straw. I wouldn't use hay with chicks because they are too little and are without any grit in their systems to deal with the risk of a blockage from a strand of hay. (I would be careful about giving chicks any grass or green stuff that isn't anchored by roots or cut into small, bite-sized pieces. If you watch the way chickens eat grass and greens, they bite it and pull off a small piece. A pile of cut crass won't be anchored to the ground, so instead of a small piece they get the whole blade of grass which can easily block their gut.) I kept my new baby chicks on towels for the first few days until they were eating reliably. White towels wash and bleach well and you can easily see the droppings, which are a way to evaluate their health.