Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

ionahenor2

spirit wrote: »

and in my case muddy foot prints on your newly washed kitchen floor. Now i wonder where i can get hen wellies from..

I think these might be a bit big:rotfl::rotfl:

http://www.ilikechickens.co.uk/homewares-gifts-c1/accessories-c18/winter-warmers-c86/funky-chicken-wellies-p861

spirit

Just a tad on the roomy side :rotfl: Pic showing Lucia and Letiticia

ionahenor2

I want some............ I think I'm coming down with Morehens disease.:j
I need to borrow a naughty car.

They are really pretty Spirit. Love their names too. How many do you have now?

Never too old Good news about your first egg.:T
Giger the duckling videos are wonderful. OH still wants ducks.

Heather when are yours due to hatch?

spirit

ionahenor2 wrote: »

I want some............ I think I'm coming down with Morehens disease.:j
I need to borrow a naughty car.

They are really pretty Spirit. Love their names too. How many do you have now?

Never too old Good news about your first egg.:T
Giger the duckling videos are wonderful. OH still wants ducks.

Heather when are yours due to hatch?

Iona, I have 13 now. I say now, because whenever I get new hens I seem to lose an ex bat

I had 9 ex batts almost 1 year ago, lost 2 in the autumn and 2 in the spring - just old age, but distressing for me nevertheless.

I started out just over a year ago with 3 hybrids, a copper black maran called Mabel, Eloise a white sussex and Florence the bluebelle. In the autumn I got Eleanor the speckledy and Poppy the black star. then a few weeks ago I got the 2 Fenton roses' and now these 2 araucanas.

Must not get any more (ties hands behind her back)

Syman

Still hankering for replacement for my old girls. Have the five in the school to look after but it's not the same.

Have lent my coop to a friend who is using it to introduce a couple of birds to her flock, so that is helping me resist.

Come August though!!!:j:j:j:beer:

spirit

Syman wrote: »

Still hankering for replacement for my old girls. Have the five in the school to look after but it's not the same.

Have lent my coop to a friend who is using it to introduce a couple of birds to her flock, so that is helping me resist.

Come August though!!!:j:j:j:beer:

Go for it, you know you want to

Syman

spirit wrote: »

Go for it, you know you want to

Oh, i will. there's no doubt about it. just waiting till after our holidays.

HeatherintheHills

ionahenor2 wrote: »

I want some............ I think I'm coming down with Morehens disease.:j
I need to borrow a naughty car.

They are really pretty Spirit. Love their names too. How many do you have now?

Never too old Good news about your first egg.:T
Giger the duckling videos are wonderful. OH still wants ducks.

Heather when are yours due to hatch?

I'm not sure Iona, they are miniature banty eggs, about the same size as a pigeons, so I don't know if it is 23 days incubation or not. She is sitting really well, only venturing off the nest to feed, drink and poo. This is day 9 of her sitting.

I'm off today to try to get her a little coop and run to put in the main hen run, so she is isolated but visible to the flock. She is in one of the 4 nest boxes at the moment and some of the other 5 girls keep trying to get in there to lay. If I'm not quick enough to get them, She pushes the big brown eggs out of the nest box and down the ladder, out of the hen house altogether, then toddles back and settles herself on "her" dinky little white eggs.

I swear she dusts her wing tips off in satisfaction once the deed is done :rotfl:

Pakkun

I am a long-time luker but this is my first post. I have decided to post my question to this thread, hoping I could hear some advice from you who keep chickens. But if I should start a new thread, please let me know.

Here is my problem:

I do not own a chicken but my neighour does.
They have started keeping a couple of hen relatively recently. Though I do not have any problem them keeping chicken, the smell it comes from their coop is becoming intorelable since the beginning of April. The smell is so strong that my hubby refuses to step out the garden. I also have to check which direction the wind is coming to prepare myself for the smell (I am a keen gardener).

The coop is located just next to the fence which we share with. It is also very close to the door which leads to our garden (I could see the ceiling of the coop from my dining room, to explain how close it is). They do not have any window on the coop side. By the way, we live in a residential area.

I want to ask them to relocate the coop to the further back of their garden so at least I could open the dining room door/window. However, I am not entirely sure whehter this solves the problem since our gardens are not so large/long so the smell could travel to our house/garden easily if they are not cleaning the coop/hen's droppings appropriately. The last thing I want to see is that they move the coop as we requested and I still suffer from the smell.



I am after some advice on how I should approach them.
I am particulary interested in:

1) How frequent a day could I ask them to clean up the coop/dropping? (I won't insist but just want to hint them...)

2) Where should the coop be located if you keep the chicken in a residential area?

3) Does moving the coop to the back of the garden solve the odor problem? Or will it stay as long as they keep the current 'cleaning' practice?

Again, I am not against keeping chicken.
I just want to enjoy my garden/dining without fearing the smell.

Thank you for your help and advice in advance.

Pakkun

HeatherintheHills

Oh dear Pakkun, that sounds like a difficult situation you find yourself in. Are their chickens always in the coop or do they let them free range sometimes? Have they built a permanent set up or does it look moveable?

I had a coop in my small garden for the best part of a year and to stop it smelling I did the following:-

1. Kept the coop as far away from the house as possible
2. Poop picked the coop and the garden every day.
3. Completely cleaned and disinfected the coup and run at least once a week.
4. Used massive amounts of straw and ground sanitizer on heavy tread areas.
5. Gave away eggs generously.

Even with the effort I put in, in wet or hot weather a smell could sometimes be noticed so I eventually moved my girls out of the garden completely.

Moving the coop could help solve the problem as the smell tends to be strongest in the immediate area of the coop.

Perhaps suggest to them that they move the coop to a spot where the prevailing winds are not blowing the smell straight at you.