Solitary chicken - need advice

[jenniewren76]

Hi all,

Hope you and your chooks are well.

I have my girls since may and I do let them free range each day but as we have had such bad weather they have been kept in.

Currently they are on wood chippings and I change them regularly and rake over etc etc.

There is no way I can move run... should I do something to sanitize the ground when I replace wood chip?

Or is this not necessary.

Thanks folks I know someone will have the answer.

Jennie

[Redwing]

I use Stalosan F which is a powder disinfectant, its supposed to be excellent

 

If I ever (and thats not often) rake over the woodchips I sprinkle some on

[jenniewren76]

Where do you get it from I tried my local farm/pet supply shop but all they has was some stuff that is used for avary houses..would this do the same thing??

 

underneath the wood chip is just plain old mud..funny my garden did have some lovely green stuff in it!!!

[kissinuk]

I put slabs down in my run as it makes it much much easier to clean (otherwise the poop rots into the earth and really smells bad when you dig it up!). On top of this I've used either woodchips, auboise or more recenty straw. Having the slabs there makes it really easy to clean out, although I do put a layer of garden lime down before I put the straw etc on top.

[Fur 'n' Feathers]

We get our Stalosan from here:

 

http://www.flytesofancy.co.uk/

 

We've got the cube on slabs with aubiose. It's possible to roll it off to do a thorough clean & then we stalosan the slabs after washing it down. Smells like strawberry sherbert. The good thing about stalosan is it kills worm eggs as well as sanitising.

 

Hope that's helpful.

[docsquid]

My run is on mud too, with hemcore in the base. It doesn't smell at the moment but only been down two weeks. DH would be reluctant to put down slabs, but if he does agree to a WIR then I will insist on a slab base.

 

In the meantime, I would like to put Stalosan down when I replace the hemcore, but I wondered how often you needed to replace it? I was thinking I'd have to do this once a month in the winter, less often in the summer when they are FR for a bigger fraction of the day. Does this sound about right?

[Plum]

I change it every 3 months on slabs and put down stalosan.

 

On earth its advised to dig in some garden lime to sweeten the soil and stalosan.