chicken housing

[cpac123]

Hi there,
I have had 8 pekin bantams for a few months now, and have found the weather causing me great distress, my garden looks like a school rugby pitch, a complete mudbath. Anyhow, we decided to get the chickens and see what works best re-housing, so although they have had a small run on their coop they have free-ranged over the garden and been very happy to do so. Aside from the poop everywhere I think its kinder to them to keep them in a run incase a fox pays a visit, so we bought a run, which I think we are going to extend but I was going to put it on paving slabs because the poo just gets mulched into the ground and ends up smelling. (We have a small garden and neighbours that could complain) Is this a good thing to do? I know that they like to forage and they prefer grass? I wondered how other people manage with the cleanliness of their birds esp in small gardens. I do keep them clean but it has been so hard with all the mud, at the moment its just ridiculous. The coop and run are small so I wouldn't be able to walk in and clean but cold reach in with a broom...

[jonnybravo]

Hi,My coup is inside a herris fencing pen with wire roof and plastic sheeting on top,the girls are still taking dust bath's,it only gets wet around the first couple of feet.no grass of course but cleaning is easy

[Brianfromdorset]

Hi I'm in a similar situation. My run is only small, not quite big enough for me to get in. The run floor was a mud bath so I scraped out the mud and put a really thick layer of wood chips. This seems to work, they love digging around in it but its manageable to keep clean. I bought 100 litres from b and q. Original price was 8pound but in the reduced section that had one for £2.50 just because the bag had a split in it. Its been on the run floor for a month and looks good as new still. I pick the poo out of it and rake it over with ahand rake weekly. The wood chips are untreated and I've heard bark chips aren't suitable.
Chickens are messy things but as long as their feet aren't caked in mud they seem happy.
My run is too small so I'm planning a extension! I've done a plan and got the wood free from work. Just need the wire and a dry weekend!
Good luck.

[sazchops]

Hi, Check out the " members coops " thread at the top of this page.
My girls have a run that is part covered and has a soil floor, I give them a bale of straw to play in periodically,
They do get to " play out " sometimes but only when I am in the garden.
So long as they have enough space, 10 sq ft each, and something to do. Plenty of perches at different levels, places to hide, jump on. and layers pellets available all day they will be ok.

[bmpsands]

I think most of us have despaired of the muddy conditions recently. I went the route of bare slabs in the Walk-in-Run. It has branches and stuff to play with and is a reasonable size - something like 15ft x 12ft and I have only 4 hens. I put a thin covering of straw down and just rake it all onto a compost heap when it gets wet. This Walk-in-Run opens out onto a netted area which they can go into all day. Just earth with logs etc. This is the bit that got really depressing and I've put down a broken scaffolding plank, more branches and some odd piles of bricks. I poo pick at least twice a day - but when it was really gloopy mud I'm not sure how effective this was.

Mine FR in the garden for a couple of hours a day when I'm home. This will have to stop once I get the veggie plot going, but I'm planning to extend the netted area to include a space round the feed store and woodpile.

Good luck with your plans. I hope we all get better weather soon.

[Mad Chick]

I think one of the things that has surprised me most by putting a roof on my run was how much less it smelled. Wet poo smells a whole lot worse than dry poo so if you can, cover the top of the run to keep it dry

We had paving slabs down in our run before we put the roof on and they were so much better than the mud/poo/gloop combination. But one thing I found was in dry weather, the poo stuck like glue to the slab and had to be chiselled off with a trowel. By putting a layer of woodchips down, it should make it easier to sweep it out and give the chooks something to scratch in

Also get some Stalosan powder - it is a powder disinfectant that was developed for use in piggeries so very good at getting rid of pongs and drying up any gloop

[KathJ]

Hello, I put piccies of my chicken run on the Member's Housing link last week (taken me months to work it out and get round to doing it). We bought a coop and run on the intanet and soon discovered the run was no where near sufficent for our 4 girls so before the dark nights set in last year we errected a bigger, secure run where they have more room during the day when we're at work. It was previously a small veggie plot and patio area made of a few slabs and scaffolding planks which we got locally for a couple of £'s each and are really useful. So the girls have the soil where the veg were to peck around in but the coop is on slabs and planks so it keeps dry. We also made a 'chicken flap' from the run into the greenhouse over Christmas which has been ideal as it's somewhere for them to shelter and also provides dry soil for the dust bathing. They've absolutely loved it but of course no good in the summer if it gets too hot