27 September 2011

Changing Coops

With the warmer weather here in force, I decided it was time to move my chooks out of their winter coop and into the summer one, today. The chooks were turned out into the yard for free range early this morning and I got to work after breakfast.
Until today, the chooks were housed in the coop at the top end of the sheds, where you see the wheelbarrow in this shot. I took 5 barrowloads of litter and old, composted manure out of this coop. There was no terrible smell, either. I just love the deep litter system. Everything falls through the straw and hay onto the sandy floor, leaving the coops smelling fresh and barny while the poop decomposes underneath.  It wasn't too hard to clean out, either as the bedding was dry and quite light to handle. It all went onto the compost heap up the back.



The winter coop after all the litter was raked and shovelled out. Tomorrow or the next day, I will wash the perches down and then spray the wooden areas with a permethrin solution to kill off any lice and mites that might be still hiding in there and then the coop and roost will be rested over Summer while the chooks move into their cooler runs for the duration.
The summer coop is a lot more open and has wire sides to allow better airflow so that the




chooks won't suffer so much from the heat of our summer. There's even wire next to the nesting box, so anyone who is laying can get a cool breeze while she does her hard work. The greenery you see in the top right of the photo is sprouted wild bird mix which we have been growing to make the transition to the new run less painful for the girls. It is in a run that has a wire roof and will be lovely for them to get some sunshine and fresh air, while still being able to find shade in the other half of the coop which has an enclosed iron roof. I think they should be pretty happy in there!

2 comments:

  1. Their homes are great love the sprouting grains.
    With their open format summer house, what do you use on the ground? You can't deep litter their summer house I'm guessing as it's just get wet from rain?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Mrs Bok

    Sorry it took me so long to reply to your comment. I've had a very busy time since my last post was made. In the summer coop, we have it half-roofed and half wire roofed, so in the wire roofed part we can't use deep litter. That will be left as a dirt floor for the girls to dustbathe and scratch in. On the side that has an iron roof, we will use deep litter which might get slightly damp if it rains but it shouldn't be enough to create problems. This is the first year we're using the summer coop though, so I will let everyone know how it goes.

    ReplyDelete