the coop smells all of the time!!! help

[hennyannie]

I would agree that sand is your best bet, but sometimes for a temporary fix I get a bag of the pellet bedding and spread it around. It absorbs moisture like crazy and smells good, but it is temporary.(It breaks down really fast.) Hay and straw to me holds moisture and smells sour very quickly outside.

 

[Dogfish]

I live in a wet environment. No hay or woodchips in the run, just sand and pea gravel. Was able to pick up a bunch of stall mats for free, and they are even better. Makes cleaning up the run a breeze.

 

[heather112588]

so question...

is there a specail type of sand for this?
I'm searching home depot websibe right now and all i see is this sand mix/sakrete stuff which is concrete...that cant be right.

 

[hennyannie]

I am hearing that any sand will work but masonary sand. (It clumps up or something) You could even use play sand but its pricey here. We buy right from the creek here, a friend has a sand pump.

 

[Titania]

I bought the bags of construction sand from Home Depot, not the play sand. It does get hard when wet. I throw chicken scratch all over it when it gets hard after a rain and let the chickens loosen it back up. Works great. Still smells off sometimes, though, so I sprinkle Sweet PDZ for horse stalls once a week and just rake it in. Also food grade DE. That makes it smell better for a few days. Also, bright, hot sun makes them smell fresher. If it's under a deck, you probably never get that going in your favor.

 

[suzettex5]

I agree with a previous poster- DE (food grade) works WONDERS on smell and dampness! We get ALOT of rain and humidity here so it gets pretty yucky sometimes. I use shavings in the barn and henhouse, but I use DE liberally on all the ground surfaces and roosting sites. It can be smelly sometimes (I just cant always clean like I need to if its raining and the kids are home all day) and so I get a bunch of DE and pour it over the really bad places thick, and then sprinkle it over everything else. It REALLY knocks the smell out, almost immediately. I do go out and scoop out the bad spots as often as possible (after Ive added DE) and then sprinkle DE over those cleaned spots again. It also keeps flies down since there is no moist poo to land on and they dont like to walk on DE.

It is kinda expensive, but not as bad as replacing shavings once a week or building a floor in the coop and buying sand etc. You could try it as an experiment to see if it works for you before trying the other solutions offered that may be more work or expense. I do spinkle it in their run/penned area, but not alot since the area is too big for that to be cost effective, but my flock free ranges, so there isnt alot of yuck in the pen to deal with, just mud sometimes. But mud dries out eventually, so I dont worry as much about it.

 

[ninnyeggs]

try sand it knocks down most of the smell and it doesnt matter if itr gets wet

 

[ChooksinChoppers]

Use 1x6 boards around the bottom of the run and fill as you can afford with sand

Doing this would prevent your sand from washing out. Kinda like building them a sand box

 

[Kudzu]

I bought a dump truck load of sand, I am sure it will be enough for 3-4 years, cost me $128.40. The good thing about sand is if you want to do a fast clean all you have to do is rake it under. I usually rake it into a central spot and then shovel that spot once a week or so. I also spray that area with the water hose; everything is much easier once we switched to sand. However, we only have 5 hens and they have a large pen, so it is not that hard to keep clean.

 

[hudsonhousechicks]

I feel for you. Our coop is also on an incline. The floor was originally dirt, the coop was not built on a concrete pad like some are. So we have dirt, then lots of sand, 3 or so inches, maybe even four inches and then on top of that I use rice hulls which is very nice and makes for excellent copmposting material. I get a pretty big bag of hulls for about $12.

I still go in and clean out as much solid poop as I can but I know I don't get it all. Putting a tarp or other covering might help keep it from getting excessively damp. In the summer months there is just no escaping some odor, even with sand and DE. Hopefully there is some air circulation, that helps a lot too. Good luck!