Ammonia smell in coop-first time owner

[rsalvatore86]

Hi, we are having our garden completely gutted and redone (thanks to the fantastic landscapers originally used by our well known house builder being utterly rubbish). We have decided to put in a permanent section for our ladies run to go on. We have an eglu classic. What surface would people advise under this? I saw someone had rubber chips which looked good as I could hose it without taking up the run. What about sand? Any other suggestions? Thanks!

 

Also, they are normally free-ranging about the garden but as we will have new turf I thought about keeping them in for a little while. Would they be ok to stay just in their run for a week or so? They are currently relaxing in the garage quite happily, with straw on the floor. They have half the garage to themselves while the workmen are in. Which do you think is best, leave them in the garage a bit longer, or have them in the garden but in their run once its finished for a bit?

[Cat tails]

I used to have the ladies on grass... But then again, I used to have grass...

Now it's just bare earth and I quite like it. I just rake it over a few times a week and try and fill the holes up again.

(I now know for certain that the skirting of the run is not to keep foxes from digging in, but keep my girls from digging out! Seriously! The holes are just about chicken deep sometimes!)

 

I know some people tried the rubber chips, but weren't over the moon. Apparently they go a bit horrid after a while and are hard to clean. I have no personal experience though.

[jimnpaula]

My run has a multi-slab floor with a layer of horse bedding (Aubiose). If I could do it again I would go for a single concrete expanse that would be level and not catch my shovel when I clean it out! I've used woodchip in the run before but switched to aubiose as it's easier to compost.

I used to keep them on the grass, but with 7-10 chooks I ran out of grassed garden to move the 4m of cube run onto, so put down slabs, then built a walk-in-run (WIR), then extended it twice. Now we have a 6ft by 15ft wir with a divider, a cube and an eglu at either end, and currently 11 ladies: my latest commercial rescues are still seperated from the others as they pick on my old lady.

[Olly]

Firstly, they will be fine in the run (assuming they have around 1 square metre per hen - you don't say how large it is!). I definitely wouldn't let them out on new turf for a week or two, it would be very distressing if they scratched it up.

 

I would either go for slabs/concrete with woodchip on top, or bare earth with the same. They pretty quickly turn the earth into something resembling concrete anyway! If you have earth you'll need to dig it out every so often, which is hard work. If I was doing it again I'd have slabs all the way through and then you can just shovel up the woodchip and dispose of it. Mine are on earth, and I add aubiose/woodchip/pine needles/sawdust and other material from time to time.

 

If you search on here for rubber chips you may find some posts on it - it seemed a good idea but as I recall it wasn't successful as it was hard to hose them down and it all got a bit smelly.

[Valkyrie]

I have a cube but the skirt of the run is on paving slabs. Otherwise it is a very deep layer of Aubiose over soil. The soil is always dry and for those times when the weather has been so awful the girls will dig to the soil and bathe in it. It has plenty of Stalosan (and now I use Biodry) and once in a blue moon I also put garden lime in. Once the Aubiose is down it gets a good covering of Diatom. The Aubiose doesn't need replacing too soon as they are mostly in the garden and their favourite spot is under a weeping cotoneaster tree. Since we opened up the fruit cage they are loving hiding under the bay and yew tree instead.

[Pottage]

Our run has galvanised mesh on the whole of the underside, which sits on soil with about 3" of aubious on the top.

 

OK, I'll be the one to say it. If you are going to let your ladies on your lawn you may as well say goodbye to it now. My back garden was completely landscaped about a 18 months before we got the Weeds. More than long enough for the grass to bed in. The scratchy, scratchy, diggy diggy little monsters had lumps of it up in no time at all

 

 

We have found a sort of solution, in that we've now covered the whole thing in garden netting. The grass is growing through it nicely, you can't even see the mesh now, and it has minimised the digging. However, mowing is proving problematic as the netting gets caught in the blades and torn. We've put more staples in, and are going to leave the grass until it is at least 3" above the netting now and see if that makes any difference. I have my fingers crossed!

[Valkyrie]

Still plenty of grass here, but I do like the idea of the mesh to protect it a bit and looking at our little bald spots (which only appeared this year along with an overhenthusiastic orpington) I had been thinking much the same - at the moment the broody cage is strategically positioned over a gap to let the grass grow as it was successful in another patch. Just wondering if the blades could be set high enough not to get caught on a permanent mesh fixture?

[mullethunter]

I put mesh on but I think I did it a bit late because all the grass was already eaten away and so now it looks a bit rubbish. Just mesh. It has stopped holes being dug everywhere so at least I haven't got mud, just loads of moss because it's so shady (to be honest it was hard work getting the grass to be half decent before the girls arrived to trash it). I'm hoping that maybe some might grow through in the spring. If not it's a rental property so I think I'll be re-turfing it before I leave - lucky it's only small!

 

My 4 bantams are in an Eglu Go with 3m extension during work hours, and they're on leaf littery soil. I'm not sure how muddy it'll get during the winter as it's predominantly well composted leaves, but if it's too bad I'll cover the run and go for wood chip on top I think.

[Pottage]

We have a hover mower and a big petrol thing (apparently we have to have two because one does lines in the lawn and the other does borders, or something equally stupid!), and they both failed miserably this weekened when husband tried the first mow after we put the mesh down. The hover mower faired slightly better on the longer areas of grass which is why we are now planning to leave it to grow a bit all over before trying again.

 

I really, really hope it works because my beautiful garden was turing into a pit ridden quagmire within weeks of the ex batties learning the can use their feet for digging

 

edit: we returfed the holes and scratched up patches with a couple of strips of B&Q turf before we covered with the mesh, I think it was about £3 a roll.

 

This is the lawn a week or two ago (modelling courtesy of Lola!) - you can see the mesh if you look hard at the photo but in reality it's all but totally covered now. Pecky still has a bit of a pop at the edges, but soon gets bored and goes off to detroy something easier to get at

 

[Cat tails]

I'm going to give the whole grass thing another go this weekend. Will put the ladies on my pavement for a few weeks with some wood chips, so the grass rolls can root. I don't think I will be putting any rolls under the spot where the run will be, but just even out the soil a bit and fill any dug holes.

I only need 4 rolls and they are about 3 euro's each, so not too bad. But because it's such a small bit, the grass gets eaten soooo fast. It doesn't really have a chance to recover even a bit.

We'll see...

[rsalvatore86]

Thanks everyone, that's really helpful. We will probably go for woodchip or the horse bedding. I did drive past a sawmill the other day that I didn't know was there, they might help with the hardwood wood chip.

As you all seem pretty into the horse bedding you must know a bit about horsey stuff. So I was thinking of this earlier. Directly onto the bedrock (which is pretty near the surface sadly), we could put a rubber mat, like those used in stables. Then on top of that put the wood chip. This would make cleaning much easier as we could easily lift and jet wash the mat every so often.

 

Before the builders came and dug it all up, the ladies were actually very good with the garden. They hadn't really touched the lawn as their main area of excitement is the (currently) empty veg patch. They practically dug to Australia in that! we're not too worried about the lawn anyway, we are only having it redone as a) it's free paid for by the builders and b) the drainage was so bad that it was flooding and rotting the grass, thanks to the incompetent landscapers the builders first used.

 

Glad you think they'll be ok in the run. They're currently quite happy in the garage. We have bought them some food based toys which I was amazed to find that they have used and managed to completely empty...clever chocks!

[Claireabella]

I'm currently using hardwood chips on soil in my chicken runs. It was very reasonably priced from a local tree surgeon and I really like it. I've used easibed in the past but this doesn't seem to last as long before it needs changing. I've also tried sand but it just seemed to get everywhere and it was a nightmare when it came to clearing it all out.

 

I can see my lawn turning to mud soon. I don't get much sun on my garden in the autumn and winter and the girls do like to dig

[mollyripkim]

Have the mesh under the grass for several years now and still have grass, the dogs wee does more damage than the girls do. Great fan of woodchip here too, we have it on top of plastic pallets which are topped with weldmesh, then a porous membrane for drainage. The rain is torrential at the moment and where the rain has got in the woodchip is wet but will be able to dry out if we get some sun.

[LunaKiw1]

We gave up on keeping the grass safe from the girls when free-ranging, especially when the ground got waterlogged, and opted instead to buy the longest length of Omlet netting which we put in round the edge of the grass, giving the girls access to the (shrub) borders around it instead. They kept that nicely clear of weeds too. The netting is very u"Ooops, word censored!"trusive when viewed from a distance.

[Angie]

The WIR is on paving and I use aubiose on the floor, easy to clean out and wash down as and when needed.

The cube is on the outside of the run, again for ease of access and cleaning, has worked well for a few years now.

[Jany]

My cube 2 metre run, and the immediate area around it is woodchip. The woodchip inside the run could now do with replacing as 6 months down the line now, much of it has ended up outside the run, and everything is a bit muddy in spite of the clear raincover. A tree surgeon has given me some chips, but I think they are from some sort of Cyprus tree and although they smell lovely, I am worried about whether they are harmful. Could someone advise me please before I use them? I do pick up whatever poo I can, but I'm aware that the chooks are eating off an increasingly less than clean surface. I have sprinkled some Biodry about from time to time, but the effect doesn't last that long. How much does this matter, and how often should I use the Biodry?

[Pottage]

Our run is on soil, with glavanised mesh stapled to the bottom of the whole thing to stop foxes digging in. On top of that they have about 6" of aubious. Means they can still have a dig around for bugs that come up through the soil but are as safe as they possibly can be from predators.

[wez]

Just moved our Cube and run onto concrete patio area with hardwood chips for the winter last week however ... I'm so far totally overjoyed at the prospect of no longer tottering about on wet grass and leaving trails in it for feeding, cleaning, general daily chickening etc and watching the girls digging and kicking around in the chips is very hentertaining (sorry!). We moved the whole set up religiously every week but the grass was really starting to suffer so now, they still get to free range on it but the amount they can eat in a few hours compared to being able to work on one area all day and 'landscaping' it as only chickens can leaves me on the verge of making this a permanent thing. Still trying to poo pick daily as I always have but am also raking a couple of times a week to let the damp chips underneath get some air and generally turn it all over. Will see how we go but I think my mind is already made up and if the Pekin Bandits are happy, which they seem to be, then so am I

 

[Cat tails]

Some Omeleteers found it much easier to clean, because you can just remove the woodchips once in a while and hose down the slabs. (my run is just on bare earth by the way and the ladies have turned it into some lunar landscape with a number of dust baths, which they use a lot)

I think any garden tile should do the trick, but be aware that they will toss out the woodchips very easily.

[KateH]

I've had runs with aubiose on bare earth and on slabs. On slabs it is easier to clean out (as long as they are level) but I found on bare earth the hens were happy making craters and the bed seemed cleaner - I don't know whether it was better able to drain - the bare earth compacted pretty solidly so I doubt it- or whether the worms/microbes in the soil were decomposing the poo keeping the bed cleaner. I'm thinking of starting again with a new set up but can't decide on whether to use slabs or not

[Valkyrie]

Our girls are situated where shrubs kept dying off, so the floor of the run is pure soil but with a deep covering of aubiose. With all the rain last year and the grass looking like a paddy field under an inch of water, their run was still bone dry. We do have a huge oak and hawthorns along the end of the garden and the girls run is in between. I was a bit concerned with the flooding but I know they'll be fine - plus any other water drains out as we are on a hill and our garden slopes down. Whaheyyy!

[PixieDust]

Static WIR on sand with Aubiose getting mixed in by the girls. It gets damp and heavy when wet but not waterlogged. A giant dust bath when dry. Poop easily sieved out. Also any missed poop dries out and doesn't really smell. We are on clay so it would have been a nightmare without a waterproof membrane and sand.

[Sammiboo]

Evening all

 

I havent posted for a while (ahem nov 2012 )

 

Been looking through a few threads for some ideas and advice. I currently have 1 x cube and run and 1x classic and run and now looking at integrating the two for a walk in run and then can try and get some of our garden back.

 

The cube run is sat on 2 stable mats with aubiose covered over the top, the classic is straight onto the ground with aubiose on the top. Although the stable mats have been great, i have had concerns about muck etc ingress under the mats and smelling a bit.

Just wondered if anyone has used paving slabs and how they got on with them? Ideally I think there should be a "kick board" edging to help stop the aubiose blowing out the run.

 

Thanks in advance

[The Dogmother]

My run is currently slabbed under the Aubiose, and I hav a kickboard too. Works fine, just shovel the littter out, then sprinkle with ground sanitising powder and pop new bedding in.

[lovelyelm]

Hi all, I've only had chickens for a month (2 ex batts) and have an eglue go up. I've been moving it each weekend but the lawn already looks like a patchwork quilt! I want to creat a static run and like everyone here I have flooring questions! Has anyone tried these to go under the hemp/woodchips? Would it work as it seems the bugs and worms would get up through and the water would drain out??