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[nervousaudrey]

I'm new to all of this and getting a bit confused about the different ways of doing things!! I bought a second-hand classic today and plan to put it inside a fenced off area (not covered although the run will be have a cover). I'm now not sure what i should put down on the floor for them, do I need paving slabs then wood chip on top? Also, would be really useful to know what people do each day/week/month etc

All advice really appreciated!

[munkee1965]

Hi

I'm new to chicken keeping aswell. I've had mine for 4 weeks now. They have an uncovered walk in area slighlty bigger than the base of a garage. I have an Eglu go which is on a raised platform. The ground they are on WAS grass but they have quickly stripped it bare . During the heavy rain it became abit of a mud bath but thankfully it is now drying out. I plan to put some wood chippings down once it has dried out abit more.

I line the droppings tray with news paper and then add a generous amount of Bliss bedding. I put Bliss and straw into the nest area.

Every morning I poo pick the Eglu and the outside area. Once a week I empty the whole tray, scrub and replace with fresh paper/Bliss.

Every Saturday and Sunday I give them Apple Cider Viniger in their water and they are wormed every 4 weeks with Vermix wormer (wormed them this week). They are due to be dusted for mites next week.

This is a fantastic forum and I'm sure someone more knowledgable will be able to offer more advice.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Welcome to the forum . Don't worry too much, you'll find what works for you . Horse bedding (Hemcore, Easibed, Aubiose to name 3) are great for inside a covered run. They magically dry up the poop so the run doesn't get yucky and you'll only need to clean it out every couple of months.

 

In an uncovered area, you can just leave the soil (or grass which will soon turn to soil). Putting a powdered disinfectant like Stalosan F and some garden lime down occasionally will help prevent smells and destroy any lurking nasties like worm eggs.

[nervousaudrey]

Thanks - there's so much to learn! Keen to get going though and be ready for the hens! Can i also ask what might be a silly question but how high can hens 'fly' with their wing clipped? Our fences are fairly low and don't know whether we need to raise them so the hens don't get into our neighbours garden!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Some breeds are more flighty than others - White Stars are known to be quite keen to "fly" but mine's never got over the roughly 4ft Omlet netting - although she did get up onto a tree branch 6ft up (using a bench as a stepping stone though!)

 

A lot depends on whether they can jump up onto something and use that as a launch pad. Our freerange area is very long and narrow so I think that deters any flying as they'd have to do a harrier jump jet start .

[Olly]

Daily - change water, top up pellets and collect eggs

Weekly - (or sometimes more often) empty poop tray, change bedding in nest box

 

Sometimes weekly, sometimes less often depending on my schedule/the weather/the amount of mess, I haul the entire Eglu (dismantled) out of my walk-in run and scrub it, before putting it back together and adding some red mite powder.

 

Every couple of months, sometimes less often, I dig out the run floor and dig in some garden lime and fresh sawdust. I am not a very conscientious chicken-keeper in terms of cleanliness, but my hens haven't complained and nor have the neighbours.

 

That's about it! If you are going to have an uncovered fenced area, do be aware that it may keep the hens in but it won't keep foxes out.

[nervousaudrey]

Thanks We are thinking of building a WIR but can't do that for a while - when we do, does making the WIR out of wood mean that we are more likely to get redmite? One of the reasons we got an eglu was to try to prevent getting redmite as much as possible (the omlet WIR is a bit out of our price-range at the moment )

[Olly]

Redmite likes to live in the dark, so having a wooden run isn't usually a problem. I suppose it's possible it could lurk in corners, but it also likes to be near the hens to feed on them during the night which is why you tend to get it in wooden coops. You'll find most of us on here have wooden runs, and I haven't heard of it being a problem.

[heth1986]

Thanks - there's so much to learn! Keen to get going though and be ready for the hens! Can i also ask what might be a silly question but how high can hens 'fly' with their wing clipped? Our fences are fairly low and don't know whether we need to raise them so the hens don't get into our neighbours garden!

 

Thought i'd just quickly give you my experience with the above on this... I fell 'fowl' to the 'chicken's can't fly' myth! My first chooks were silkies. Now these CANNOT fly, no matter how hard they try, clipped wings or not, bless them. Mine had a 3 foot fence around them and had no chance of getting over this, I don't think they can get much above 30cm off the floor!

 

I now have hybrids who now all have clipped wings. When I first got them I put some netting up, knowing that they'd be able to fly a bit better than the silkies. The net is about 6 feet high. On their first day, before they had their wings clipped, one of them flew clean over the netting and I found her legging it down the garden towards me to demand meal worms! Another helpful person on this forum suggested i keep them in their 'enclosed' run which is attached to their house for a week so that they knew where home was. I did this (and clipped wings) and have had no problems whatsoever since that day. In fact even when I took the netting down for the day to try to tidy everything up they still stayed in with the 3 foot fence

 

I hope that helps?

 

Good luck with your girls, looking forwards to pics!