Planning for winter: winter bedding

[tlck9]

Hi All

Apologies if this has been posted before

What is best for wintering your chucks, at the moment they have wood shavings, however with my earlier bout of red mite I thought i'd red not to use straw/hay

We have an ark, which until I can get the OH to build me a new one....I need to think of ways of keeping the water from soaking in under the eaves -

I thought about a contraption to fit over the ark roof, eg a removable ply roof with roofing felt over it, which would act as a saddle type affair

All ideas welcome

[Suechooks]

How about stapling some bubble wrap - the sort you insulate greenhouses with - over the top of the ark. That'd serve as warmth and waterproofing and easy to remove when you don't need it. The other thing I've seen are sort of ridge tiles made of Onduline; only thing is they're quite flared out so may not work. I tried it on my little broody ark and it was too wide. You could put some carpet over the ark and remove during the day.
I've been using newspaper under perches to keep red mite at bay thro summer but with the colder nights I'm about to start putting Hemcore down again to insulate the floor.
We do worry about these girls don't we! I plodded a mile thro thick snow 3 times a day last winter to get to them and give them porridge!

[MaureenHall]

I'm thinking about putting Hemcore down again now that the warm weather's gone away. 3 of the Bluebelles laid eggs during the night (or early morning) and they were still on their perches so I had smashed eggs At least with soft bedding they've got more chance of bouncing

[MrsC]

Maureen, is hemcore expensive, never used it?

[MaureenHall]

It's around £8 a big bale and it goes a long way! I use it in nest boxes, on the coop floor (in the winter and really wet weather), and to soak up the puddles in the run. It smells nice and it composts down quite quick. I get it from Wynnstay

[Eco-Chic]

My 3 have only been perching for a couple of weeks and since then I've put the shavings at the back two thirds of the coop and newspaper under the perches. I just lift the poopy sheet of newspaper out from under the perch in the morning.

Maybe I'll spread the shavings all over the floor for warmth and lay the newspaper over the top underneath the perches.

I need to find something better than the ashphalt roof too, which allows the water to puddle and makes the interior damp.

[bluemoon]

I'm just going with a thicker layer of Hemcore. Our houses have one design flaw, which is that when the large access door at the back is opened there is nothing to stop the bedding falling out, (and, naturally, they always think that's the best place to pile it up) but this does make cleaning easy as the litter can just be swept out. OH has his thinking cap on and is hopefully going to come up with a way to keep deeper litter in whilst still allowing it to be swept out and for any water used in cleaning to be swept away too. Probably some sort of removable plank which can slot in for most of the time and be lifted out for cleaning

[beulah59]

I'm using a shower curtain over the ark to stop the rain ... and woodchip in the run. In the loft of the ark, I use newspaper on the floor and shredded paper and straw in the nest box. Seems OK so far ...

[tlck9]

I did wonder about using shredded paper as I have stacks of it...but I wondered if this would get too wet for them in the winter?

My OH has announced this afternoon that he has been out to buy some wood and that I need to design a new coup

Our ark is okay, but I never liked it much, and when it turned up and it was smaller than I thought it would be that didnt go down well

What if any are the pro's and cons of this coup....
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=270468616157

I was thinking of it being much higher on stilts so a chicken could lay under it and be in the shade, or out of the rain??

The other quick question is: how big has this got to be, I have a 8ft x 8ft netted roof run for when I'm not there, so the house is for laying and for sleeping

I also want to add another 2-3 chucks but I read the coop had to be 4.5 sq foot per chicken, this would make a huge coop.

Am I wrong...and thinking that the 4.5 sq foot per chicken is the overall space needed including the run?

[Suechooks]

Depending on the breed of chook, you need about 8" of perch space per hen up to 12" if you have larger birds like Orpingtons. I have a 6' x 4' coop which has two 6' perches so in theory I could keep 18 birds in there. I actually have had a maximum of 12 in it. At the moment there are 6 warrens rattling around in it! The RSPCA state 1 sq yard of outside space per bird can be called free range commercially!
Mike from Bramble Poultry posted some plans a few weeks ago. I have actually built one and its really good. If your OH is good at joinery he would be able to adapt one of those. There's one raised up and that's a 3' x 3' but easy to adapt to a larger one I think.
As far as shredded paper goes I think you're right it would get soggy!
Couldn't open your ebay link so can't comment on that!

[lettucegrow!]

Glad to hear everyone's using hemcore, I was accused of spoiling my hens by the lady in Titmus suppliers when I bought the french version of it- Aubiose I think it's called. I think it's really good and lasts ages for my three.

[MrsC]

Will look into the Hemcore, thanks guys. Also, I could collect the paper from the recycling bin at work and shred it.

[Snadger]

For winter bedding I can recommend wallflowers(Ericymum),polyanthus, forget me nots(Myosotis), bellis daisies and ornamental kale..........................................................................................Oh, I see.........................you mean THAT kind of bedding!

[RichmondHens]

Chickens don't need anything extra for winter. As long as the house is dry and draught proof, that's all they need; it makes no scrap of difference how much stuff you put underneath the perches. If they choose to sleep on the floor, then you will have to clean it out daily anyway to stop them sitting in poo, so extra bedding will just be a waste.

[Eco-Chic]

I have read that soggy shredded paper sticks hard to the chooks feet and legs and can choke chicks.