Horses and chicken barns

I’m not sure how there can be no smell. Even a well run farm will have some smell at some point.

It’s usually when they clean out the barns that it smells. If they clean out and move the manure off site immediately, then there’d be far less smell. I just cannot believe that there is no smell at all.

Bio hazard risk is quite low if all chickens are contained indoors and manure is removed.

Hi Neighbor! :wave:

If I had a dollar for every time I saw a horse farm with commercial chicken houses on the same property… it’s like a way of life around here.

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With the separation you describe, the only health issues that could POSSIBLY come up (and I would think they would be very unlikely) are feather dust/dander in the air (birds put off a lot of dander, but I believe almost all of it would dissipate in the fresh air before it reached the horses), and the possibility that if there was an outbreak of bird flu in the flock (unlikely unless the chickens have a way to be outside to get exposed to wild bird droppings) and a worker carried it to the horses and then it jumped species. Again, HIGHLY UNLIKELY.

So no, it wouldn’t bother me, as long as there were disinfectant foot baths to keep viral or bacterial germs from being carried from the chicken barn into the horse areas and workers washed their hands well.

I have never smelled anything in 5 years of being there 5x/week at different times of day…they must be doing something right! I would assume that would be a good sign of low bio-hazard risk.

That’s impressive.

I’m also highly sensitive to the smell of chicken poop,even though I have a few hens myself. For some reason it’s one of those smells I can pick up even when it’s very faint. I do find that chicken poop only really smells when disturbed and/or wet.

This wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me if it’s a well kept farm/situation like you’ve described.

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Leeward versus windward perhaps? I trained out of a place that had a chicken operation on the (prevailing wind) leeward side. The only time there was ever a smell was when the wind did a full 180 to bring in a nasty storm from the east.

That would make sense!