![]() ![]() ![]() You will be visiting the coop routinely in order to refill their food and water, collect eggs and generally check up on them. It’s also a good idea to choose somewhere that can be easily accessed from your house. One good location for a coop can be under a large deciduous tree where they will be able to keep cool in the summer afternoons and can bask in the sun during winter months when the leaves have fallen. Keep this in mind when you’re choosing a spot on your property or yard. Chickens don’t like the heat and will need shade during the hottest part of the day. Choose a Spotĭeciding on a spot for your coop is step one. With some basic carpentry skills and a few tools, you can finish the project in a weekend. While they’re young, a cardboard box with a heat lamp in your home will suffice, but by the time they’re six weeks old, they’ll need more substantial housing to keep them warm, dry and safe from predators. ![]() If this sounds like something you would want then you may have already researched places to get some chicks. Not to mention your yard will have fewer bugs and ticks. Easy to apply, on a calm windless day, just sprinkle over the woodchip after the birds have gone to roost and it will have done its work by morning.Raising chickens in your backyard or on your property is a great way to ensure you have fresh eggs every day. A DEFRA approved disinfectant against all notifiable poultry diseases, it is safe for you and your girls.Īlternatively, you can apply a hygiene powder like Stalosan F Disinfectant to stop the run smelling and to absorb moisture including harmful parasites. It is highly effective against fungi, bacteria and viruses and is ideal for washing off the hardwood woodchip. This is best done in the twilight, on a dry day after the hens are shut in the house.Ī good disinfectant, like Net-Tex Virocur Poultry Disinfectant, cleans and disinfects in one application. We advise mixing the disinfectant powder in a watering can and then walking back and forth watering the ground. It's entirely possible that your neighbours will think you've gone a bit potty if they see you, but one of the best ways to keep your woodchip clean – and to avoid nasty smells - is to regularly treat it with a poultry disinfectant. But, you may ask, how do you get the best from your woodchip? Raking and Washing the Hardwood Woodchip Properly maintained, a good layer of woodchip can last up to a year or more. Even though it is hardwood it is still soft enough for the birds and best replicates the surfaces of their ancestral roots in the jungle. Hardwood Woodchip will sit on top of the ground and can withstand all weathers. Softwood would degrade very quickly and work its way into the mud. Much better than bark, which we do not advise because of the mould spores, and bark does become slushy after the rain. You can also place it on top of paving perhaps as long as it is deep enough, and the rainwater can drain away. ![]() No need for a Geotextile membrane, you can place the Woodchip directly on to earth or grass. If your hens have a fixed run, and they are scratching at bare earth or splashing about in the mud, add a good layer of hardwood woodchip in their run and you will have happy hens! Image above is our Silver Spangled Hamburgs here at Flyte so Fancy, in our Protection Pen. They will love scratching around looking for elusive bugs and worms and it will, with care, create a clean barrier for them to live on, out of the mud. Flyte so Fancy’s Hardwood Woodchip(a play grade quality with softened edges and of relatively uniform size with very little bark) can provide an excellent chicken run surface to keep your hens ‘entertained’ as well as clean and healthy. ![]()
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