[New shoot]

The girls got their weekly house clean, monthly red mite dusting and quarterly big run clean out and dig over all in one day.

Don't know who is more knackered.  Me shoveling old bark out of the run and new stuff in while trying to avoid 6 very over excited chicks diving for worms off the end of the spade or them.  They've had to inspect the house, 'help' dig the run, race round avoiding me with the mite powder and dig all the new bark over just in case        It was all so exciting they didn't even venture into the garden even though the run gate was open.

[grumpydad]

if possible, try to use liquids in the coop to cut down on the amount of dust where they sleep.

virkon s is a liquid disinfectant, poultry shield and red mite liquid concentrate can be sprayed on the floor and walls, DE mixed with water or red mite concentrate and painted on the ends of the perch as a slurry.

stanoslan f is a powder disinfectant good for the run

[TeaPots]

I use stalosan too, but there is NOTHING that can neutralisise the pong of broody ppop 

[birds in a basket]

Who needs the gym with pets to look after!!!!! 

[feelingbroody]

Hello Newshoot

Can I ask being as I am a newbie, do you use wood bark chippings on the floor of your run/coop ?? I never thought of that and if its ok to use I bet its nice for them to scratch around in .

[Flowerpower136]

I use stalosan too, but there is NOTHING that can neutralisise the pong of broody ppop 

Try garlic powder in their water.

[hillfooter]

Hello Newshoot

Can I ask being as I am a newbie, do you use wood bark chippings on the floor of your run/coop ?? I never thought of that and if its ok to use I bet its nice for them to scratch around in .

Definitely not in the confines of a coop as bark grows moulds and the spores can infect and be very damaging to a chickens respiratory tract.  Bark can be used in an open well ventillated run as can wood chippings or forrest mulch (tree shreddings).  Just be careful there's no yew or laburnum or other poisonous plants in there and watch out for mould growth.  Spores are produced when it dries out. 

Softwood chips are usually pretty safe hardwood chips can grow harmful moulds though generally in a well ventillated area there's no problem.

HF

[New shoot]

Hi Feelingbroody - good advice from Hillfooter which I would echo.

I only use bark chip in the chicks big outdoor run and use wood shavings inside the house.  I buy the wood shavings that are labelled low dust.

The outdoor bark gets a good weekly hose down assuming the weather is not wet and dank and it will dry again quickly.  The chicks love it and scratch around for hours.  My run is roofed so stays dry otherwise and is tall so very well ventilated. I've never had problems with the bark growing mould but it does get regularly turned and aired by 6 industrious little sets of feet 

[hillfooter]

I use stalosan too, but there is NOTHING that can neutralisise the pong of broody ppop 

Try garlic powder in their water.

Errr..... why Flowerpower?  Do you like them breathing garlic fumes over you while you sit in their house on your sunflower cushion?  Or does it just keep vampires away?
HF

[Flowerpower136]

I use stalosan too, but there is NOTHING that can neutralisise the pong of broody ppop 

Try garlic powder in their water.

Errr..... why Flowerpower?  Do you like them breathing garlic fumes over you while you sit in their house on your sunflower cushion?  Or does it just keep vampires away?
HF

No idea why it works, but it does!  I'm relying on you HF to provide a scientific explanation   Why does garlic water result in non smelly poo? 

[grumpydad]

i did have bark and then wood chippings in the run, but have now changed it all to easibed, another horse bedding product, softwood chips, easy to see the poo to pick, rots down easier than bark or wood chip, and being horse bedding is ok for the chucks. my outside run, however is covered so it does stay generally dry.
when i change it, it is easy to remove, spread stalosan f, new bedding, and a quick spray with virkon s, all done

[feelingbroody]

At the moment I have a 16ft run and about 6ft of it is covered and has easibed on the floor and I have put soft shavings low dust in the coop. Is it better to cover in the remainder of the run then ??

[hillfooter]

I use stalosan too, but there is NOTHING that can neutralisise the pong of broody ppop 

Try garlic powder in their water.

Errr..... why Flowerpower?  Do you like them breathing garlic fumes over you while you sit in their house on your sunflower cushion?  Or does it just keep vampires away?
HF

No idea why it works, but it does!  I'm relying on you HF to provide a scientific explanation   Why does garlic water result in non smelly poo? 

OK Flowerpower,

A scientific explaination,  Hmmm let's think.....?  Well I guess there could be two.

Explaination 1  Placebo

It's been statistically proven that the only way to conduct a truely objective survey is to have two groups composed of randomly selected subjects, one to which the test is applied and the other which is the control group which has a dummy 'sugar pill'.  The test must be double blind which means the subjects and the people compiling the results must not know which group is which so that unintentional or intentional bias is eliminated.  Then providing that the test group illustrates the effect being tested to a statistically significant extent then that's a positive indication that the effect is real. 

Unfortunately your subjective opinion (or anyone elses) is not valid since the rigorous trial conditions are not met.  Ie no matter how objective you think you are being, you suffer from bias.  It's a bit like the election debates when everyone interviewed afterwards claimed their man had won. (Obviously to a much lesser degree).

Explaination 2  Garlic really does reduce the smell of chicken poo. 

If this is so you'd need to produce a hypotheses which was credible, for example, a chemical explaination as to how garlic reacts in the body to reduce the ammonia in the chx poo. 

To establish this there are several things that need to be defined the most obvious is what do you mean by smell.  Most people probably find the normal poo smell unpleasant (though not necessarily everyone for example my wife thinks horses are pleasantly smelly whereas I prefer chickens).  If garlic made chicken poo smell like roses does that constitute "reducing the smell" or merely masking it.  Having defined in greater detail what the criteria was you'd then need to to design and conduct a trial with a large number of tests (particularly as it's subjective) in which several groups of chickens were judged by several groups of people using double blind techniques. 

I'm not aware of any published material which postulates what the mechanism might be or of any statistically valid test results though I've not done any in depth research on this.  So for the moment the juries out no matter how many people believe it to be true.  After all if you were to poll the entire population of the world before Christopher Columbus discovered America and Elvis Presley the vast majority would have said the world was square!

We could of course ask the World Famous Poo Expert Dr Gillian McKeith to give her opinion or do some research except the good doctor isn't a real medical doctor at all and her experimental results aren't worth publishing in any serious medical journal at all and never have been.  You could obtain the non-accredited PhD she claims merely by buying a correspondance course from an American correspondance "college".  This also markets vitamins and health supplements as well as providing "qualifications".

If you want to know more entertaining and amusing facts about the abuse of scientific facts and methods by the media and so called scientists and experts read the very funny book "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre.  Covers such things as TV experts, the facts behind supplements, popular nutrition myths MRSA,  MMR scares and much more.  I'd recommend it.

Bet you wish you'd never asked!
Best wishes
HF

[dizzylizzie]

HILLFOOTER...SERIOUSLY.....

Please can we have it in english, most of us are mere mortals

[Hayley'sHens]

Im glad im not the only one confused by Hf's explanation  :blink: