Poorly chicken

[Lee1988]

Hi all,

Been thinking about keeping chickens for years but, for one reason or another, I never took the plunge. Recently, we have - we set up an eglu classic on hard wood chippings and yesterday we brought home two hens (a Warren and a Light Sussex). I'm wondering how to clean the hard wood chippings - we've been picking out the bits we can see at the front of the run, but the other end is so hard to get to - really not happy with the run compared to the eglu itself. We've raked over, picked up big bits of poo and we've put Stalosan down too. Should we hose/watering can the chips at night maybe? Would it be worth putting easichick down on top of the chips?

Feeling a bit anxious as we have a small garden with neighbours close by and I want the run and coop clean so there's no smells - we're already getting lots of flies and it's only the first 24 hours (think it's because it's so dry and hot at the moment though).

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Cat tails]

What’s below your chippings? Is it on earth or pavingstones? Most here will poo pick the run with rakes or dustpans. But you will never get it all. Putting easichick on top of the chippings wouldn’t really work I think. If using something like easichick, your run needs to be absolutely rainproof, which is hard with runs like that of the classic. I think you can add a door on the coop end of the Classic run. Pretty sure there is a kit for that and someone on here has done it.

I have mine on bare earth and part of the run is paving stones. I only clean out the coop once a week and don’t bother to do anything with the earth part of the run. I sweep the pavingstone part once a day.

I have loads of flies in the garden, but use a fly trap. Think it’s called a red top fly trap in the UK. Works a treat, but make sure you don’t hang it up close to your house as it will smell a bit.

Forgot to say, that my garden is tiny too and have neighbours on all sides including upstairs neighbours.

[Lee1988]

The wood chips are on gravel. I'm going to try to get the door fitted for easier access to the other end of the run. Do you think it would be useful to hose down the chips too? Or would that make the problem worse?

Thanks for the reply.

[Cat tails]

You can hose it down. I do it occasionally with the bare earth in the run. But think you should only do it on hot days, so it gets the chance to dry out completely. But again, I wouldn’t worry too much. A fly trap makes more difference than trying to keep everything spotless. Which is impossible anyway with chickens.

Found that chickens are little poop machines. Amazing how much can get out of one bird! 

[Luvachicken]

Try hanging some bunting up with citronella oil, lavender oil and eucalyptus oil on  - it smells really nice to us but helps repel the flies 

Or you can use the same mixture on those little terracotta saucers and dot them around the outside of the run.

[AndyRoo]

Red Top fly traps. I have 2 and they capture literally thousands of the things!