Locking Bar Eglu Classic

[Patricia W]

Panic not, heatherjulia. Cover the run with a clear tarpaulin from somewhere like Tarpaflex, or clear shower curtains (79p )from IKEA. Put a little skirt of plastic lawn edging round secured by cable ties. Then fill the run to a depth of about 2inches ( could do less, but that is what I do) of Aubiose, or Hemcore, or Easibed ( horse bedding) and you can leave it for 2 months or maybe more. The poo magically disappears and they have a lovely time digging around, dust-bathing etc.

 

It took me a year to find this solution (thanks to here) so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Tricia

[Ain't Nobody Here]

HeatherJulia, what shame, you sound really down about it all . Fear not however, help is at hand in the form of this forum . I think there are easy solutions to all your problems .

 

I would suggest you:

 

1. Get rid of the wood chips if you aren't happy with them. Dig over the soil, put some Stalosan F and powdered garden lime down which will disinfect and remove smells and put a type of horse bedding down instead. (Hemcore, easibed, aubiose are a few available types). You'll have to cover your run though as they are very absorbant. Shower curtains or corrugated plastic sheets from B&Q and the like, are good.

 

2. Get some netting (it doesn't have to be expensive and you can just use garden canes to string it up) to keep them off your flowerbeds and lawn. Designate an area which you're prepared to "lose" to them. This also helps keep the poo in a manageable area so you're not constantly walking in it!

 

3. Don't worry about one mouse, it doesn't follow that you'll get rats! I discovered a family of mice living under the slab just in the doorway of my WIR so cleared out their nest and put a couple of traps down in the shed and garage. I also take in my grubs every night to remove their food source.

 

4. Relax! Once you've got these things sorted, I'm certain you'll enjoy your girls .

 

Hope that helps

 

(Just cross-posted with Patricia .)

[C&T]

Panic not, heatherjulia. Cover the run with a clear tarpaulin from somewhere like Tarpaflex, or clear shower curtains (79p )from IKEA. Put a little skirt of plastic lawn edging round secured by cable ties. Then fill the run to a depth of about 2inches ( could do less, but that is what I do) of Aubiose, or Hemcore, or Easibed ( horse bedding) and you can leave it for 2 months or maybe more. The poo magically disappears and they have a lovely time digging around, dust-bathing etc.

 

It took me a year to find this solution (thanks to here) so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Tricia

 

Agree 100%. Found this solution on here too, and it makes keping the chooks a doddle. The key to the run (as i see it) is to keep it dry. Once it starts beoming wet, that's when the smells etc start... And the lawn edging is great at stopping (most) of the hemcore/auboise or whatever from being kicked out.

[heatherjulia]

oh wow, thank you guys so much. I really wasn't expecting to find a solution - just posted in despair hoping for a bit of sympathy I suppose!

 

Gosh, thank you, will definitely take all your advice.

[Mercedes55]

heatherjulia, well I'm sorry to read you are having similar kinds of problems to me

 

If you are in Wheathamstead then you are very well placed for Titmuss who sells the aubiose and all the ex batts food too. I'm in Watford, so it's a bit of a trek for my OH when he goes over there to pick up stuff, which is why today he went to a place in Northwood that patsylabrador told me about.

 

I do agree about the woodchips, they are awful when they get wet. I hate to think how people manage with bark chippings as they seem even worse. Our 4 hens were in a standard Eglu run for the best part of 2mths and honestly their run was a mess, even though we had slabbed the inside about a month ago, which I have to say did help.

 

We bought a couple of sheets of clear corrugated plastic from B&Q and a pack of assorted bungee clips from there too and put those over the top of the run, then put the sun shade and Winter shade on top of that when it was sunny. We then put some log rolls along the outside edges, but when it rained really heavily the edges did still get wet I think if we had perhaps bought another sheet of corrugated plastic and made sure the whole of the run was covered it might have worked better. The shape of the run doesn't exactly lend itself to being easy to cover.

 

My hens had also made a fair bit of mess in the garden. They would dig for England, mainly on the edges of the lawn. Our dog was constantly eating their poo and I sometimes found I was walking in it too as it was so hard to avoid. It was at that point that I moved the chicken wire so that the hens could only use the back end of the lawn and that did help a lot. We've now given them the whole of the back border which is about 6ft deep and 20ft wide. It's just soil with shrubs and they seem to love just pottering around in there and digging holes.

 

I'm still waiting to see what happens when it rains again regarding the inside of our run. I have to say today I'm very pleased with the rapport stuff we have put down. It looks nice, is very soft and has a nice smell to it. I put some Stalosan F down yesterday so hopefully it should stay okay, fingers and toes crossed.

 

My OH says that I'm just 'not a chicken person' because I don't like mess and in some ways I think he is right as I am constantly going outside with my disposable gloves, perfumed nappy sacks and little trowel to poo pick

[Bexibex]

Hi Mercedes

 

So sorry to hear you have been having problems. You got your ex-bats a few weeks before me and have been a great help to me in the past with your advice. I really hope you get it sorted and everyone else out there who arehaving problems.

 

So sorry to hear about Henrietta too, it is my worst nightmare and I worry about my girls all the time.

 

This forum is fantastic for giving advice and I think a lot of us would be lost without it.

 

Good luck and hopefully everyone's problems will be resolved soon.

[Lavenders_Blue]

My OH says that I'm just 'not a chicken person' because I don't like mess and in some ways I think he is right as I am constantly going outside with my disposable gloves, perfumed nappy sacks and little trowel to poo pick

 

 

Wow, that shows dedication to a thankless task! I just pick up the bits that look like they're worth picking up every few days and hurl them into the top of the compost bin

 

(I think the rest probably just gets stamped into the soil)

[The_eggwards_family]

We have just got some wood chips (luckily for free) but they are already damp and we havent even put them in the run yet and Im a bit worried about the potential mould problem.

 

If we fill the run with aubiose, how much will we need? Ive no idea if we can source it locally but I figure delivery charges will bump up the price online, but are there any recommendations for online?

[heatherjulia]

Oh I do hope it works out for you Mercedes - I'll keep everything crossed for you too.

 

We do get all our chicken stuff from Titmuss - we're up there at 7.30am some days before we go to work!! We are lucky to have it at the end of the road though. I'll definitely do as people have suggested and I HOPE it will all be ok.

 

I have been wondering whether I'm just not a 'chicken person' as your OH puts it! I really thought I would be, I was SO keen to rescue some ex-batts and give them a happy, pampered life, but I'm amazed at how distressing I've found it to see them creating such a mess and digging up the garden. I think it's been made worse because we only moved to Wheathampstead a few months ago and it's our first proper house together and we've never had a garden before. It was totally overgrown when we moved in and we spent weeks clearing it, then creating lovely flowerbeds and planting pretty things! I was SO proud of it, I had no idea it was going to be ripped to shreds. I do think the omlet site makes chicken-keeping sound so easy and hassle-free.

 

I can't help but wonder as well whether ex-batts dig more than other chickens??? Maybe not, just a thought. It's just that ours are so frantic with their digging, and I thought it would calm down after a few weeks but no!

 

Anyway, best of luck to you, do let me know how you get on.

[Mercedes55]

We have just got some wood chips (luckily for free) but they are already damp and we havent even put them in the run yet and Im a bit worried about the potential mould problem.

 

If we fill the run with aubiose, how much will we need? Ive no idea if we can source it locally but I figure delivery charges will bump up the price online, but are there any recommendations for online?

 

The aubiose goes a long way, but you might find it cheaper to try out something like rapport first as it's cheaper and does the same job. I think we paid £9.00 or a bit over for a bale of aubiose from Titmuss but the same size of rapport was only £6.00 or £7.00. We've put 3 bales down in a 24ft by 7ft run and although it's not thick all over it does cover it all. We've even left one in there all wrapped up that we are using as a seat

 

We never actually had any mould problems with the woodchips, it was more a case of them getting into a kind of congealed heap where the poo had seeped through and then dried into it. As for sourcing aubiose I would look for any horse shops locally.

 

Oh I do hope it works out for you Mercedes - I'll keep everything crossed for you too.

 

We do get all our chicken stuff from Titmuss - we're up there at 7.30am some days before we go to work!! We are lucky to have it at the end of the road though. I'll definitely do as people have suggested and I HOPE it will all be ok.

 

I have been wondering whether I'm just not a 'chicken person' as your OH puts it! I really thought I would be, I was SO keen to rescue some ex-batts and give them a happy, pampered life, but I'm amazed at how distressing I've found it to see them creating such a mess and digging up the garden. I think it's been made worse because we only moved to Wheathampstead a few months ago and it's our first proper house together and we've never had a garden before. It was totally overgrown when we moved in and we spent weeks clearing it, then creating lovely flowerbeds and planting pretty things! I was SO proud of it, I had no idea it was going to be ripped to shreds. I do think the omlet site makes chicken-keeping sound so easy and hassle-free.

 

I can't help but wonder as well whether ex-batts dig more than other chickens??? Maybe not, just a thought. It's just that ours are so frantic with their digging, and I thought it would calm down after a few weeks but no!

 

Anyway, best of luck to you, do let me know how you get on.

 

I'm not surprised that you feel upset about your garden. I know I posted a couple of pics of how our garden looked before we had the chickens. The whole side of the garden where the chickens now are was taken up with a huge pond and a big flower bed with trees to one side. We've spent 12yrs building our garden up from just an empty piece of ground and it was looking really very pretty. Just hoping we can get it pretty again

 

We've spent all this afternoon and evening on 'rain watch', we must be getting sad! We were at our granddaughter's birthday party and just kept looking out at the rain and asking each other which direction the rain was coming down and it was quite funny when someone asked us why we were so obsessed with the weather

 

Tomorrow night we are going to a party at our neighbours house and already we have been wondering if the noise will disturb our hens. It's like having a baby all over again

[scarlettohara]

Heatherjulia - I'm in St Albans and use Titmuss for chooks and horses, Wilko sell netting really cheaply and the green garden edging, I have both. I use the netting to keep the girls out of the vegetables and it works fine. I'm getting ex-batts at the end of September and will be putting them in the eglu with bedmax which is also good

 

I have just checked and Titmuss sell Rapport - it looks nice I think I will try it.

[chooksandcrooks]

Hi everyone,

 

Countrywide sell flax bedding which seems to work on the same lines as hemcore but is cheaper