Re: ammonia smell

Amy Blankenship wrote:
"A _L_ P" <hey_hell_pee@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:494572E1.3020904@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Christina Websell wrote:
" Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:6qd21dFbh9bhU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
dghealy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
There is a strong ammonia smell in my barn in the morning. I have 3
bales of shavings on the ground. I have about 60 birds in a 12x 13
area with a high ceiling and staircases and ceiling roosts. I notice
the bottom layer of shavings was damp. but I am still surprised at
the smell. this cant be good!
It means that tomorrow you have a busy day cleaning the WHOLE lot out.
It will keep you warm ;)
Once you have an ammonia smell you have conditions that require a complete clean.

Agreed. 60 birds in a 12x13 area seems a lot despite the ceiling height.
Imagine this. At this time of the year your birds will go to bed around 4 pm and get up around 8 am. They will poop all night, unlike humans.
No wonder there is an ammonia smell. Clean the huts out at least every week at this time of the year.



My parents had a deep litter combined house-run, the "house" part being at the back and fully enclosed, the front with a large netting window with a perch in front of it so the chooks could see what was going on, with particular emphasis on greens and buckets of weeds arriving. At the back the perch was fairly high - the house itself was quite high, my father had to stoop a little to get into it but it was easy to clean out.

Under the perch was a *** of ? - hardboard or plywood - which caught the droppings and made the perch area cosier by reducing cold air getting to the girls' undercarriages. They jumped up onto the platform then onto the perch so it wasn't a leg-jarring leap either way.

At the side of the house was a small hatch for pulling the droppings-catcher out and cleaning it. If I had built a new house or the existing one weren't such an ancient cobbled-together structure I'd certainly do that since it makes for much easier cleaning. Also the litter doesn't need changing for yonks, and another thing, the fresh chicken poo can either be used to heat up a sulky compost heap or put into a barrel of water to mature into foul-smelling but nutritious liquid plant food.

I wouldn't put that onto food plants unless you aerate it somehow, because otherwise all you're doing is culturing the anaerobic bacteria in it, which typically are not ones you want on your food.


That'll be why those liquid fert "recipes" always contained instructions to either put the poo in a bag and lift it up and down every day, or stir well with a long stick every day, I suppose. I always supposed it was so the stuff would mix into the water faster.

I don't think essence of poo was ever watered onto plants because of the danger of burning them. Instead, from memory, it was diluted and put into the watering can and used for watering the root zone. I've always been too lazy and the compost heap always needed a boost to get it heated up, besides I've smelled those drums of liquid manure and they are GROSS, whether the substance is poo or comfrey.

A L P
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