Eglu Go With 2m Run For Sale

[Dudley1]

I am new to all this and have had my Eglo Go and three lovely ladies for about two weeks. At the momment I am moving the Go around the lawn every three days. I clear up as much of the poo as posible from the grass and put it in the compost bin. If I set up a permanent site in the garden and use wood chippings in the run.....what do you do about the daily poo? I can't see how you can clear it of wood chippings daily. Help and advice please

[jackian]

Welcome o the wonderful world of chickens.I do hope you are enjoying your girls.

I have a WIR which obviously is in the same place all the time. my girls stay in while I am at work and the poo is easily sorted.

I have wood chippings which soak up a lot and I rake it all over at weekends. There is sanatizing powder which you can buy in tubs that you scatter lightly over the run to keep it fresh.

I poop scoop each evening after they have tucked themselves up to bed ready for the next day.

Sounds a lot but it takes only a few minutes....Thank good ness

When I am home they roam around the garden and spend a lot of time on my patio.The poo is scooped up and binned and i spray the patio with a mixture of jayes fluid and water .then I slush it all with water......at the moment the heavens do that job for me

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I use horse bedding (Easibed, Hemcore & Aubiose are a few types available). It magically dries up the poos so you can leave it for a few weeks or even longer without having to clean it out.

[Duncan08]

I had my and 4m run on a permanent site. The run is difficult to get into to clean properly.

 

I dug out the area, made sure that there wasn't any glass or anything in the ground, then laid a layer of bark (you shouldn't use bark - i didn't know that then), and sat the on top.

Looked great for a few weeks in spring, The girls managed to dig that all in pretty quickly and rain, poo and uneaten veg started to leave a pretty stinky mess.

I have a long handled rake that I would use to turn the ground over, with limited success and by the time the autumn rains came it was pretty gross.

 

My dad was building me a WIR for my christmas present, but still had about 10 weeks to go, so I moved everything off the site again, dug it all over and put the worst bits on the flower beds. Added a layer of gravel, then put the and run back on top. Used a shower curtain to cover the roof and down one side of the run, where it was next to the fence, and used tent pegs to pull it away from the side of the run.

(As I had a 4m extended run with two panels I also moved my door panels to the open side)

 

I added some strips of PVC soffits that I had left over along the sides of the run, at the bottom, to act like the linkaboard and stop the girls kicking everything out. Then filled it with a thick layer of easibed, (the horse one) The easibed is only any good if you have covered a good part of the run or you will end up with a load of soggy mess.

 

I stopped the family feeding s"Ooops, word censored!"s by throwing it in the run and got a couple of stainless steel dog bowls for collecting and feeding along with the balls that you stuff leaves and things into and hang up. I even have a "kebab" stick, it was for parrots I think, that you can thread grapes and toms onto.

 

It worked so well that I have now done the same thing in the WIR - The WIR has been in occupation since christmas eve, so four months, and I give it a good rake over once a week with some diatom, it is still in pretty good condition, not stinky, definitely not slimy, they did get a bale of straw, which was supposed to be my seat but they have now decimated and spread everywhere. I did poo pick for the first few weeks, but they stirred it all up with their digging and the easibed sort of makes it dissappear, hence now it just gets a good rake over with the diatom.

In a few weeks I will take it all out and put some fresh down, which hopefully should last until the clocks go back when I like to do a massive clean out for the winter.

 

Now their free range area - thats the next target to try and get under control, that is just soil now, sorry muddy slime at the moment

[chestnutmare]

A concrete base which can be shovelled and swept clean (and hosed with no resulting mud, if needs be) covered with wood chip or Rapport (horse bedding) is my friend.

I've kept my Go on grass. It's messy, especially if it's raining.

[sparkysmum]

Hi and welcome You will love your hens once you get your run sorted You really need a permanent site - on soil/paving slabs/ anything then filled with woodchips or if you can cover your run, horsey bedding. I think ANH has pics of her Eglu run on the forum which is pretty ideal if you don't have a WIR. The key for me is uncovered = woodchip, covered = horsey bedding. Hope this all makes sense. Alli x

[Ain't Nobody Here]

It certainly worked really well for me, Alli .

 

[sparkysmum]

Think you should make your Eglu run into a sticky, ANH. Haven't you also got a photo looking into the run Alli x

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Indeed I do .

 

[Purplemaniacs]

I was just saying to OH that we will need to improve the weather protection for the eglu run before the bantams are old enough to go in there. At the moment the ex batts are in there and it is rather soggy I think the old Omlet covers do not keep the rain out anymore.

 

Chrissie

[sparkysmum]

There you go Dudley, that's how to do it Alli x

[pips_pekins]

I use horse bedding (Easibed, Hemcore & Aubiose are a few types available). It magically dries up the poos so you can leave it for a few weeks or even longer without having to clean it out.

 

My Eglu is set up like yours ANH. In fact, if the Eglu in your photos was orange, I would have been quite confused as to how you came to be taking photos in my garden but would have been very grateful to you for cutting the grass .

 

I used to use wood chip but much prefer horse bedding as I found the wood chip didn't dry up the poo in the same way and it seemed to stay damp for ages in wet weather.

 

I use Stalosan F to disinfect the run. I used to clear out the run weekly and start again but now I simply rake over the run every week, sprinkle the disinfectant, top up the horse bedding and leave them to it. I change the aubiose completely every month or so.

[Mrs Potts]

Hello, Dudley1.

 

I had a Classic and copied ANH's wonderful set up, complete with wood-chip as I felt the Omlet covers did not offer as much protection. Every few weeks, once they were in bed, I used to take the covers off and sanitize (used Stalosan). It worked really well and being red, I could make sure I'd got good coverage. Having breakfast up the accessible end of the run seemed to coincide with bowel movement no. 1 which was usually quite well formed so if I could get to it easily, I'd whip it out with a trowel. Lovely job first thing!

 

Mrs Potts

[Dudley1]

Thanks for your advice has given me lots of things to think about . I like the plastic covering ANH ...where did you source that? All the recent rain has been a very soggy introduction to keeping chicks!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

It's corrugated plastic sheeting which I got from B&Q (take measurements of the length of your run so you get the right length as there are a couple to choose from!).