Winter Chicken Coop Care Series, Part 4: Heating your chicken coop.
November 18, 2010
VIDEO: A behind-the-fence look at two inspiring urban homesteads
This episode of Growing a Greener World on modern homesteading aired a while back, but I just came across it again on Northwest Edible Life and wanted to point you to it. Click here to read the post and watch the show.
It features two of my favorite chicken/gardening writers and a closer look at the worlds they’ve created in their backyards — Jessi Bloom, author of Free-Range Chicken Gardens, and Erica Strauss, author of The Hands-On Home as well as the blog linked above. (See our Buyer’s Guide for links to their books.)
Topics covered include:
- Deep-litter method
- Free-range vs. confined range
- Keeping ducks and chickens together
- Involving your kids in garden and chicken chores
- Making your home more productive
- Perennials vs. annuals for growing your own food
- Compost
- Tips about growing backyard fruit, and more. . .
Enjoy the tours, interviews, and inspiration!
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4 thoughts on “VIDEO: A behind-the-fence look at two inspiring urban homesteads”
Garden Coop,
That’s great. Thanks for the info. Do you also use DE? I read this can help with smells and with mites/lice and other pests. Your thoughts?
Dave
We do use add some DE every now and then when we toss in some new straw, for the reasons you mentioned. I don’t notice it helping with odors — mainly adding the bedding does that.
I have a 4 X 4 foot coop and a 7 X 15 foot run. My plan is to have 6 laying hens. My concern is keeping down smells so that I’m being respectful of my neighbors. Any advice on disposal/composting of waste/keeping down smells.
Dave, we use the deep litter method in the run which is where you add carbonaceous material (straw, dry leaves, wood shavings, etc.) as the hens add poop. This combo gets everything composting right away and keeps odors down. Whenever you smell odors, just add more bedding. In the henhouse, we usually keep a layer of bedding on the floor, then we clean that out as often as needed, brushing it down into the adjacent run for further composting.