Poorly chicken

[glatz167]

love the cube but not very happy about the roosting bars.

They get dirty very quickly.

What do you clean them with?????

has anyone complained to omlet>>

Thoughts and advise appreciated

Kind Regards

Neil

[Snowy]

When I clean out the cube I just use a plastic s"Ooops, word censored!"er to take the worst off the bars. When the weather allows I powerwash them. I'm after a second set of bars so one set can be drying out after washing. Not sure what Omlet could do about the amount of poo generated at night though!

[Ziggy]

With the eglu, I've had two sets of roosting bars and I swap them around from time to time, and either hose them or let the rain clean them (we had such heavy rain a while ago, it did the job nicely) and leave them to dry until next swap. Just got a cube, and got a spare set of bars for that too, planning to use the same 'swapping' method.

[chelsea]

I dont have a cube, but we bought a power washer the weekend and brought our eglu bars up like brand new! they were really clean.

[Cheryl]

erm...WELL, we made another set ourselves out of smooth batons... you cant blame omlet for the amount of poo ...but I suppose for the price of the cube which is very costly it wouldnt be a bad idea to supply it with a second set...

[gary&debbie&amy]

why not spray them with plastic spray make's it easy to clean seen this on the forum

[Scooby]

Hubby made a spare set of bars himself so we can alternate them whilst one set is drying off.

[Couperwife]

I was just about to suggest plasticote stuff (or something like it), you know the spray on plastic.

 

either that or nappys

 

I think the second set of roosting bars is a good idea too

 

cathy

x

[BeckyBoo]

Hi there, yes there's a few niggles with the cube. The bars are pretty awful really, we got two sets so we could have one clean to go in the cube and another drying out after being scrubbed with a wire brush and the hose. But they both fell apart, for some reason the Omlet guys used staple that really weren't long enough so I had to nail them back together. The other main niggle is the door to the run, you have to commando crawl on your belly to get in, really nice once the chooks have built up the layers of poo!!

 

Some people have used that plasticoat stuff which is supposed to be good.

 

Mrs Bertie

[Shirl]

I just wanted to add that I used the stuff you can get from B&Q and it's rubbish so please spend your money on the stuff you have to buy online. mine wasn't a spray but a paint on job.

[Couperwife]

The other main niggle is the door to the run, you have to commando crawl on your belly to get in, really nice once the chooks have built up the layers of poo!!

 

you commando crawl through the door

 

I'd love to be one of your neighbours when you do that

 

we normally cheat and take the whole front off (sooooooo much easier )

 

I did actually commendo crawl through on Sunday, the chooks looked at me like i'd gone crazy

 

cathy

x

[Dodge]

Hi everyone,

 

As you can see, I am a newbie and have had my cube and chooks now for 3 weeks. I like Mrs Bertie have found a couple of niggling problems with the cube and I hope you will find my following solutions helpful.

 

1: Roosting Bars - By far I think that most complaints have had something to do with these. I have done what a lot of people have done, and bought a spare set. However I have reinforced both sets with a heavy duty staple gun that fires a heavier gauge and longer staple. I am afraid that as previously pointed out, whoever makes these roosting bars is using the wrong type of staple gun, and it is simply not man enough for the job.

My spare set of bars arrived in the post with 3 bars detached and loose in the box

 

2: Mrs Bertie said

The other main niggle is the door to the run, you have to commando crawl on your belly to get in, really nice once the chooks have built up the layers of poo!!

That made me because that is what I had to do, but managed to solve it by buying just the centre support bracket that you get when you buy the run extension pack (about £21) and then I removed the front part of the run completely and then secured the support bracket to the top and sides of the run with heavy duty tie clips. With the run all nice and rigid, I then secured the bottom part of the run front piece to the 2 sides and bottom of the run, again with heavy duty tie clips.

This then allows me to fold up and down the top half of the front of the run and I can secure it in place using rubber bungee grab hooks, the same that holds the weather shield on top of the cube run. 2 on the top and 1 on each side stretched tight ensures a secure fit.

 

I can now climb into the run with ease by just releasing 4 hooks, but my chooks can still go in and out using the original door.

 

3: It's great that lots of people are rescuing ex batts However I think that a lot of ex batts have trouble negotiating the ladder for the cube as they tend to be very weak and unable to jump up to the first rung. Also my chooks were frightened of the big open spaces between each rung of the ladder and kept on falling through the spaces.

 

I therefore got an old piece of floorboard and cut it to length so that it reached from the floor to the opening of the cube. I then screwed down some horizontal rungs about 4" apart, and now my chooks can walk up and down without any problems. In about a month’s time, I will remove it as I hope by then, that they will all be fully fit and more than capable to get in and out.

 

Kind regards

 

Dodge

[Olly]

ooh, useful tips there Dodge (by the way, I love the 'subservient chicken' link in your signature .. although it felt slightly creepy!)

[Egluntyne]

I like the mask....but I'm not sure about the chicken.

 

The suspenders bother me a bit.

 

And isn't it an advert for Burger King?

 

I doubt the chicken they serve is free range and organic.

[Cheryl]

To be honest I think thay all these modifications are great but doesnt everyone kind of think its a bit unfair that we have had to do all this?...

My cube and run and 4 hens cost me about 800 pounds, and I think for that price we shouldnt all be discussing ways to modify it....

How many of us would buy a sofa for that amount and add bits and attach others.. I must say it makes me wonder...The ease of cleaning is great and the portability is also but the price is awfully expensive....

[Ziggy]

Maybe we should be all writing to omlet to suggest that they

- staple/nail their roosting bars together better

- plastic coat them for use of cleaning (after all the rest of the cube is all made of plastic)

- design a bigger front door (I sent my 8 year old in there, she doesn't have to do the commando thing, she just pops in and out easily as she is quite small)... the front panel is divided in the middle, and if not attached with too many clips, it's actually quite easy to flip down the top bit and climb in that way... maybe all the design requires is a way to clip that top half in that is easy to do/undo to access the run, and still safe enough that it holds together should a fox or anything have a go at it... When I talked to Omlet about the door on the phone, I realised that the cube has been designed to be 'on the move', so when you want to access the run, you just push the whole thing out of the way... but many people keep their cube on a permanent surface, and it's not therefore possible to just push it... lifting it over an edged area would be tough work each time... maybe Omlet needs to rethink the cube as a 'stay put' thing as well as a moveable thing.

 

I am told the back panel has been modified to avoid flooding inside the cube... not had mine for long (3 days), so can't really yet say if it worked... considering the size of the ventilating slot on the back panel, I guess in strong wind and rain water would still get in, but then mine is in a reasonably sheltered position...

 

Maybe if many of us send all these suggestions to Omlet, they'll do something about it... they were definitely very nice when I talked to them on the phone, and I was told they'd pass my request for a bigger run door over to the design team.

[The Dogmother]

Ziggy, email your post to johannes@omlet.co.uk; he will pass it on.

[mayflower]

Hi Dodge, When you first had your ex bats hens, did they go straight into the cube complete with the ladder? We are collecting our ex bats in March to go into the cube, but of course the problem is the ladder. At present we have the cube in our large lean to conservatory(no, not posh, like a shack at the back.!!!) minus the legs and wheels. Originally, we were going to put the hens in a small convalesent house until they were stronger. However, I thought that moving them to the cube in a few weeks time would be too traumatic for them. So, our idea is to use the cube on the floor until their legs are stronger. Your idea of attatching some wood at the back of the ladder is a great idea.

[chili pepper]

When i got my ex batts last year they were in surprisingly good shape as some of them can be and would of probably been fine with the ladder. Maybe your girls will also be like this? I'm getting 4 more next month and will move my old girls from their eglu to the new cube and put the new girls into the eglu for the start, hopefully once they have settled and introduced themselves we hope to have them all in the cube.

[The Dogmother]

Emma 'the herd' has ex batts using a cube, and I'm sure she hasn't found them to have a problem with the ladder. I expect that she will be along later to tell you how they find it.

[Dodge]

Hi Mayflower,

For the first 2 or 3 days, we had to put our girls all in the cube by hand, as they could just not manage to get up by themselves at bedtime.

 

That was when I decided to try and make life a bit easier for them and made them a temp ladder that they can all walk up & down without any problems. Have a look in the chicken albums under Dodge's Girls for lots of pics.

 

I think that your cube sat on the floor in your conservatory is a great idea, as it won't suffer from any rising damp and your new ex batts will have no problems getting in or out.

 

At the end of the day, I am sure if I left my girls long enough, they would have eventually managed to use the stock ladder.

 

However God knows what stresses my girls had been subjected to in their previous lives and I just wanted to spoil them a bit.

 

Regards

 

Dodge

[mayflower]

Thanks Kim, Claret and Dodge

[BeckyBoo]

To be honest I think thay all these modifications are great but doesnt everyone kind of think its a bit unfair that we have had to do all this?...

My cube and run and 4 hens cost me about 800 pounds, and I think for that price we shouldnt all be discussing ways to modify it....

How many of us would buy a sofa for that amount and add bits and attach others.. I must say it makes me wonder...The ease of cleaning is great and the portability is also but the price is awfully expensive....

 

Yes, it is a bit much but the trouble is that certainly when I bought mine, they were pretty new and I think these things were teething troubles.

I'd like to think the bars had been sorted by now as it only needed a more "manly" staple gun. The door thing has been sorted by a few now, mine will be sorted soon as we're doing away with the cube run altogether, and I had in fact resorted to sending in the children if it was ever required. I think the cube is too big to be portable, ours certainly stays where it is.

 

Mrs Bertie