Smelly Situations!

Things were starting to get smelly everywhere in our house today! The basement chicken coop was about a week over due for a cleaning, so we began there. We went through the normal cleaning routine, but I decided to take a quick picture of the girls while they waited for the pin to be cleaned (tough chicken life, huh?). I thought they looked so funny in the dog carrier. After a closer look I realized that I only saw two of the girls. I knew we had put all three of them in there so where in the world could the last girl be? I could see Big Crown and Cluck but no Scabby. I began looking around all the sides and saw the Cluck was sitting on top of Scabby. Somehow I wasn't surprised!

Scabby is on the lower left side- this is right after she got out from underneath Cluck!

The other smelly culprits of the house were the ducks. To be fair, the smelly situation was more my fault. I got the idea that it would be interesting to see if I could raise the ducks solely of the urban waste stream. There is a local bakery a few blocks from our home, and I am figuring they must through away plenty of bread products so that could be their urban food source (once they are old enough) and then I thought I would make bedding from shredding junk mail. I find the idea of shifting "waste" into a valuable commodity fascinating and an excellent commentary on the surplus of waste. So the bottom line of this is that I tried the shredded junk mail bedding. It took less that 24 hours for the paper to absorb all the spilled water, pee and poop to make a horrid smell. I think I may bag this idea!