Hiw do people dispose of the waste from the chicken run?

[JoanneB]

Hi,
I'm just wondering what people do when they clean out their chickens runs. Where do you put the waste. I keep my chickens in my back garden and don't have a compost bin or heap. In the summer months we have a garden waste bin and the waste/bedding from the chicken house goes in there but this is the run so there is more of it and it is more soiled, wet and smelly.
Any suggestions much appreciated
Thanks
Joanne

 

[Marigold]

Hi Joanne, wet, soiled and smelly -oh dear!
The first thing to say is that, whatever you use, it won’t get wet if you can fit a roof to your run, that makes an enormous difference to both comfort and hygiene for both the birds and you.

Next, the bedding - I wonder what you’re using? Many of us use Aubiose, which is shredded hemp stalks, incredibly absorbent, made originally as deep bedding for horses but equally good for chickens. It’s excellent stuff for easy poo picking, and if you do this every day you can just top up the base layer when it gets a bit thin, and if it stays dry under a roof it won’t get smelly. Literally, regular poo picking takes less than five minutes a day, including in the coop, where you can use Aubiose as well. Have a bucket and a pair of gardening gloves, job done.

So what do you do with it? Well, poo coated in Aubiose makes superb compost. Layer it into a compost heap along with vegetable peelings and garden greenstuff including grass cuttings, and in summer it will heat very fast and the resulting compost will be very fertile, especially if you can turn it a couple of times as it heats up. In winter, if there isn’t much green stuff available, I put it straight on the garden as a mulch around established plants and shrubs. The worms take it down and the rain helps wash it in.

If you don’t want to start a compost heap, maybe a neighbour who is a keen gardener might take it from you, it’s really good stuff. Otherwise, well I guess you’d just have to bag it up and take it to your recycling centre and put it in the green bin so it would be made into compost that way.

I’ll be interested to hear what other people do?

 

[dianefairhall]

We bought a compost bin when we got the hens so it all goes in there with any food waste.

 

[rick]

Hi Joanne,
I have a similar situation – just enough room but could do with more. We generate some green waste but don't have any place, realistically, for a compost bin and anyway that would give us lots of compost which we don't really need.
Having a roof on the run makes a big difference. For most of the time the waste is sweepings from under the roost, poop collected from the run (I use a litter picker) and the dry dropping that become a base layer of dust under the bedding which is easy enough to sieve out with some 1/2” mesh. That gives me no more than a couple of paper caddy bags of fairly neat chicken dropping a week (for 3 ½ chickens – 3 LF hens and a pint sized boy.) There was a guy who had that for his allotment but it was hit and miss whether he wanted it or not. I did ask the allotment if they would like it delivering in passing (more convenient for me0 but I guess there are quite a few allotment keepers who also have chickens. It’s worth asking around though as it is highly prized stuff!
When it comes to changing the whole run the only way I have found is to put it all into big bendy buckets, load up the car and take it to the green recycling at the tip. We were never given green waste bins here because our side of the street has no frontage to put them out on.

 

[JoanneB]

 

[JoanneB]

This is a photo of my set up. Has you can see it already has a roof, which obviously is a legal requirement at the minute anyway. However the rain runs down the slopes and drips into the sides of the run. At the moment I am using easibed. I use to have a lower run with a built in top (I will try and find a photo) and I did use auboise in that. However because the run was so low it was very awkward to clean out and I found the auboise clumped together and really did smell. Easibed does not clump together and doesn't seem to smell and with me now being able to stand up in the run its so much easier to clean, just the problem of how you dispose of the waste.
How often do people change the entire contents of the run?
I clean the house every week! And the contents from this are now starting to build up as we have no garden waste bin during the winter months. Looks like weekly trips to the local tip for me!
On a different note, during the last couple of weeks my ladies have taken to sleeping in the nest boxes instead of the roost bars. Any ideas why? Is it because their cold? Not really a problem just makes for messy eggs!

 

[JoanneB]

 

[Marigold]

Hi Joanne that looks a very nice run, but the reason rain runs in at the sides is because
a) there are no gutters to catch it and take it to a down pipe and
b) you have no shielding on the side(s) facing the prevailing wind, so even if you had a gutter some of the rain would blow in lower down.
Even if it’s not possible to fit gutters on that type of metal frame, clear plastic tarps on the worst sides would make a lot of difference in wet and windy weather. The tarps are not expensive, easy to fit using cable ties and can be removed when the weather gets hot and dry.
Mine last for several years and really make a difference in the wet, cold conditions that hens hate. I get mine from Tarpaulins Direct; it’s the clear monotex ones. Get a large enough size as it’s easy to cut to size with scissors, and it’s frustrating I& it turns out to not quite big enough!
You don’t want it on all the sides, leave at least one whole side open on the sheltered side and maybe half of one of the others.
See https://tarpaulinsdirect.co.uk/tarpaulins/monotex-tarpaulin
I see some if the smaller sizes are out of stock ATM but if you wanted to cover more than one side you could perhaps buy a big one and cut it up, it’s easy to do.
There was a thread recently about weather protection see http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=11230 which has some pics of tarps in my run. You can see how they can be easily fixed to the mesh with cable ties, and then when you want to take them down in Summer you can just cut the ties.

 

[JoanneB]

Thanks for that Marigold. Me and my husband were talking about it only this afternoon. I suggested guttering and he said covering the sides so hopefully between us we can get it sorted and I will definitely have a look at the tarpaulin website you've recommended. Thanks again

 

[Marigold]

You could try Tarpaflex if the other firm is out of stock in the size you want see
https://www.tarpaflex.co.uk/acatalog/Clear-Mono-Cover-Tarpaulins---170gsm.html

There’s a bit on p3 of that link I sent about tarps, showing how to use the cable ties.
http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=11230

 

[rick]

Mulling it over... I think what I would do is make a frame for the roof from battening (or similar light lengths) that extends it out by 8" or a foot on all sides and then cover that with a tarp. Then, if you also cover the prevailing wind side, that should fix it.