Do Chickens smell?

[Jen's Garden]

Probably seems like a funny question?! I want to use Patti's rotating chook tractor over veggie patch system. Chickens in the tractor for one month over each patch. My veggie patch is quite close to the house however. So I wonder if anyone can tell me if it will smell bad (I'm told it's worse when it rains) and if I can do anything to minimise or eliminate the smell?

[gardengirl72]

Well, anything can smell. But if you add hay, straw, wood chips...anything that is high in carbon the smell should be under control. Also, make sure you don't over crowd the cage.

If you stick your head in the cage you will smell something. If it starts to smell, simply move it along.

[Richard]

I've been looking at the same thing and found these reviews for products sold with a funky chicken house sold in the UK called an Eglu.

Bokashi and garlic powder apparently.

http://http://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/shop.php?product_id=190

http://http://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/shop.php?cat=Chicken%20Extras&sub=Health&product_id=134&sort=popularity&start=0

Both products are reviewed and one the bokashi breaks down the poop and the other neutralises the smell.

It may work

[Backyard Permaculture]

I tried your links to those places you mentioned

"Bokashi and garlic powder apparently.

http://http://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/s...product_id=190

http://http://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/s...larity&start=0 "

and neither site worked for me.

However Patti is right. If chickens are in any one place long enough, they build up a lot of nitrogen rich manure which will smell, especially while wet or refreshed by rain to some degree.

The solution that Patti gave is extremely low tech and extremely effective. Even better yet it should be very cheap or free!

Being a cabinetmaker, I have used wood chips/shavings/sawdust extensively which mixed with the manure or simply laid on top of it and let the chickens mix it it is an ideal solution. The wood waste will absorb the excess moisture in the manure, and balance the carbon/nitrogen ratio, allowing it to decompose into great compost.

The best raised garden I ever raised was filled with no more than composted wood shavings and chicken manure.

According to Joel Salatin in his book "Pastured Poultry Profits", there are other benefits as well. While Joel pastures his chickens in movable pens while the pastures are green, in the winter he would house his laying hens inside, using wood shavings for litter. He says that the build up layers of manure/wood shavings would provide scratching material for the birds, they could actually feed off some of the micro life growing in the mix, and that natural antibiotics produce by bacteria would be taken up by the birds. Then, only once a year, in the spring, when the pastures were greening up again, would they clean out all the litter and put it in the compost pile to be turned by the pigs (piggerator pork as he call's it).

Make friends with your local cabinetmaker/shop owner (not me, I use all I make for myself and still don't have enough) and have him/her save it for you. Just make sure it is solid wood waste, not particleboard, melamine board, MDF or even plywood which has nasty chemicals in it. You might have to offer to sweep up his shop a little for it.

And you'll keep a "waste" product from going into the landfill.

Ron
the Green Cabinetmaker

[Richard]

Sorry the links didn't work but if you want to check it out search for eglu the items could be found under chicken supplies.

The wood shavings seem like a great idea.

Those raised beds of yours. Did you rotate as Patti suggested or did you remove the manure and shavings to a compost bin then reapply later?

[Backyard Permaculture]

Actually neither. We were renting that house. Right after that summer, we bought a house and that raised garden soil was just spread out on the lawn.

However I would likely have just replanted with the next crop.

Ron