what to use in quail pen to reduce ammonia smell

[sniper338]

Interesting. May have to try it to keep the small down in my shed..

 

[titika]

Is it safe though for poultry?

 

[enola]

Yes

 

[mckeesbackyard]

Bragg's Organic Apple Cider Vinegar is what we put in the water (1 tbs/gallon) for both our chickens & quails. I don't know if it keeps the smell down but it seems to keep them healthy & no loose stools. We sprinkle Sweet PDZ in the poop pans that we bought from TSC (they're deodorizing granules that people use in horse stalls)

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[titika]

Thank you all for the help

 

[Chicken-Farmer]

I built my cages to be 6' x 3' and then sectioned each cage into 3 2'x3' sections. 1 male 4 females. Automatic waterers outside cage and one feeder per cage that are tall and don't take up much room. I find that with 4 girls my males don't pick on them and the cages are very spacious. I hang my cages so that raccoons and opossums aren't a factor. The birds poop falls into flower beds that I built below each cage using cheat treated fence boards from Home Depot. 6'x4'. In each flower bed I have black soldier fly larva that compost the contents at a staggering rate. No smell and free compost! Black soldier flies are natural down here in Alabama and I attracted them initially with some feed that I put in water and allowed to ferment. Once the soldier flies were attracted they started their own colonies in each bed. The black soldier fly larva have a pheromone that keeps other flies out of the area. It's a win win! The larva can be fed back to the quail, but mine don't seem to like them. I just let the larva do their thing in the worm beds. The grown soldier flies only live for a couple of days, they don't have any mouths to bite, and their sole purpose is to breed and lay eggs for more larva. They are pretty incredible insects. Each worm bed has thousands of larva in it, and I can actually see the bed contents churning like water with all the worms. When I butcher quail from the growing pens all the feathers and guts go into the beds as well. Within a few hours everything is gone. Bones, guts and feathers. Last year a wild rabbit got stuck in a chain link fence and died. I put the carcass into one of the bins and the entire rabbit was gone in one day!
Up until the point I built the worm beds dealing with the amount of poop was very time consuming and the ammonia smell was pretty bad especially on wet days. Now the worms naturally aerate the bins and the ammonia smell is gone. My quail pens now have a earthy compost smell like a garden, no stink.

Chicken-Farmer

 

[sniper338]

Well thats nice lol

 

[PinkBee]

I've been using the ACV since my first quail hatched (3 weeks ago.) I don't know if this has helped or not, but I've not lost a chick and, all things considered (there are 15 in my Florida room in a 2x4 brooder with pine shavings,) there is very little smell (actually, I've not noticed an ammonia smell ever, just the warm, poopy shavings' smell that tells me to clean the area around the food dishes or sprinkle some extra litter into the rest of the cage.) I put 1/2 tsp ACV into each quart of water.

 

[WaterfowlWierdo]

The PDZ works really well, I use it in my brooders, pens, litter boxes and rabbit cages

 

[PinkBee]

So what exactly is Sweet PDZ? I've tried several times to look up the ingredients, chemicals, whatever it is and found nothing. It says it's safe for birds to eat and it very likely is, but what is it? LOL

Editing to note: In googling "What is sweet pdz made of" the answer came up that it's a mineral like DE made from a crustacean. Geez, just whine a little and google will suddenly decide to provide an answer.