Chicken bald back

[SuburbanChick]

Okay, so the chickens love their woodchip and we have covers over the top of the Omlet run BUT when it rains the woodchip gets wet at the side (rain runs off the covers and into the run) and then the wet seems to spread... The outcome is very wet woodchip all over after a bit of scratching by the chooks. What do people do to combat this???

 

Second question - just how do you poo pick woodchip? We end up throwing a bag of woodchip away every week. I've seen recommendations to hose the woodchip down but, seriously, how many weeks of the year could you do that? We use Stalosan evey week to try and keep the woodchip smelling nice but it's costing us a fortune topping up/replacing the woodchip and it doesn't work if it's wet.

 

I love aubiose and use it in the nest box but how do people use it in the run and keep it dry?

 

Any suggestions on how to improve the whole chicken poo problem gratefully accepted!

[mullethunter]

I don't think you can stop it getting wet unless you have covers to the ground, in which case they may as well be indoors. It doesn't matter if the woodchip is wet I don't think - at least it doesn't get muddy.

 

I use a small child's plastic beach spade to poo pick so don't chuck away more than a few pieces of woodchip.

[Grandmashazzie]

I use rubber gloves and a wallpaper stripper from Poundland. It does get wet but drys off generally although our weather here for next week is rain, rain and more rain. I have WIR and was thinking of putting clear tarpaulin on side that's most open to driving rain. Perhaps you could do that with part of your run.

[Chickabee]

I deep litter. So I don't poo pick the run every day. I use straw and easy bed and bio dry. Every once in a while it all gets thrown in a wheel barrow for the compost heap. Then we start afresh

[mullethunter]

I do have clear tarpaulin almost to the ground at the back and on half of one side so a part of the run is always dry

[The Dogmother]

That's normal, even with Aubiose. The only remedy is to have a tarp long enough that you can angle it slightly outwards at the bottom and attach the bungee hooks about6" away from the run wall so that the water runs away from it.