Kay Kacey

I'm feeling like a dolt that I didn't put two and two together myself - I could've just looked at the time line and figured it out...
He is learning about microflora/microfauna slowly. He's active in the area of asthma, and alot of the new medical literature is saying that we need to proactively expose our children to some pathogenic material so that their immune systems learn how to react appropriately - its really all the same thing - we're part of a system, not to be isolated. Maybe I can teach him about deep litter in that context.
Thank you so much for your help.

you have no idea how much sense this makes - I wanted to keep our chickens on "deep litter" and I tried to explain the biodiversity of the method to my husband (god bless him, he's an RN), but he just couldn't wrap his head around letting it get dirty means its cleaner than before.
In fact, I was the primary chicken husbanman for the years PREMITEs - and the coop got cleaned maybe once a year, and not hosed out. When my beloved become more involved (because my methods were so unhygenic), that's when the more frequent and thorough clean-outs started happening. That is exactly when the mites and lice established themselves.
Now, if I can just help him to understand this with our new property and new flock...
Of course, the upside of his method was that we had gobs and gobs of immensley rich compost. It really increased our garden fertility, and almost offset the damage from foraging chickens.

Thank you for this idea, and thank you for your concern about humane conditions for our friends!
We've already built most of the new chicken house. We're converting an old barn. Its on a south-facing slope with a warm microclimate, and we're going to build a passive solar greenhouse on the front.

Thank you Judith!!
In case anyone needs the additional information, my girls are in their open-air yard (thus the dirt baths), and access the garden and compost pile regularly, most of the day. I'm sorry if I offended anyone's sensibilities thinking that I keep them enclosed with artifial light 24/7 - I don't. I really want to be a good hostess to my girls, and keep them happy, healthy and protected from predators. (though the owls, hawks, foxes, etc. do need to eat also)
Namaste

We had chickens at our old property for 15 years. We built our chicken house out of pine studs with plywood on a concrete foundation, did not insulate with anything. In the winter, we did have to supplement with light bulb heat to keep the water from freezing, which also provided the day-length for consistent production in the winter. We kept a deep litter of wood shavings that we cleaned out thoroughly about every 4 months (which made the most supreme compost for the garden in about one month of boxing and turning), and when we cleaned, we carefully sprayed the floor clean with a high-pressure hose. At about year 7 keeping birds, we developed a mite/lice problem. We learned that the arthropods had created a home in our plywood walls and pine studs, and we were not able to ever successfully disinfect and get rid of them. Our chickens, with all their dust bathing, were not able to rid themselves of the pests, and the girls were really not very happy or comfortable.
We are building a new chicken house at our new property; our building plan is very similar in that we are using wood products and a concrete floor, but this time we are going to insulate with plenty of windows for ventillation. We hope that we will not have to heat the water to keep it from freezing.
The question: We're thinking about applying a concrete finish, like the enamal "paint" that is being marketed for garage floors - to make the concrete easier to clean off. We'd like to apply something to the wood walls, also, to keep the lice/mites from establishing a home there and to make water-pressure clean-up more effective and efficient. I'm thinking about applying FRP (fiberglass-reinforced plastic) panels over the wood panels, but I don't know if they off-gas VOCs. My husband would like a product that we can just paint on - but I'm pretty sure anything that would paint on as a water-resitant material would off-gas.
Looking for any comments or suggestions! Thank you!