{"id":2184,"date":"2026-10-21T13:33:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:33:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/?p=2184"},"modified":"2026-10-21T13:33:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:33:57","slug":"how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Reduce Ammonia in a Chicken Coop This Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The morning my eyes watered before the girls had even stepped out of the coop, I knew I had let the bedding go a week too long. It was early December in Knox County, cold and still, and I had shut the vents down tight because I was worried about the cold. What I&#8217;d actually done was seal in a cloud of ammonia and ask twelve hens to breathe it all night.<\/p>\n<p>If you can smell ammonia in your coop, that&#8217;s your sign. A human nose picks it up at around the level where a bird&#8217;s airways are already getting irritated, so don&#8217;t wait for it to sting. Winter is when this sneaks up on small-flock keepers, because we close things up to keep the heat in. The fix is not complicated, and none of it is expensive.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"cmg-supplies\"><p class=\"cmg-supplies__title\">What I use to keep a winter coop dry<\/p><div class=\"cmg-supplies__body\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B075SP4X2W?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hemp bedding<\/a> \u2014 soaks up moisture well and stays loose, which keeps droppings from matting into a wet layer<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B016AO5GAI?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A nipple-and-cup waterer<\/a> \u2014 keeps water off the floor, because spilled water is the fastest way to a smelly coop<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B00EORGCXY?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">A galvanized double-wall fount<\/a> \u2014 a sturdy metal waterer that doesn&#8217;t tip and slop, for the run or a sheltered corner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div><\/aside>\n<h2>Where ammonia comes from<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop-02-source.jpg\" alt=\"Damp matted patch of bedding under the roost where droppings build up\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Chicken droppings carry nitrogen, mostly as uric acid. When the droppings stay wet and warm, bacteria break that nitrogen down into ammonia gas. Dry droppings give off very little. Wet droppings give off plenty. So almost every ammonia problem is really a moisture problem, and that&#8217;s where I start.<\/p>\n<p>Hens pour out a surprising amount of water from their breathing and their droppings, especially overnight when they&#8217;re roosting together. In a closed winter coop that moisture has nowhere to go, so it lands in the bedding, and then the smell follows.<\/p>\n<h2>Step one: stop the leaks<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop-03-leaks.jpg\" alt=\"Hen beside a hanging bucket waterer with red drinker cups over dry bedding\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Before I touch the bedding, I look at the water. A leaky or tipped waterer can soak a corner of the floor in one night, and no amount of fresh bedding will win against a daily puddle.<\/p>\n<p>I use a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B016AO5GAI?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nipple-and-cup waterer<\/a> inside the coop because it barely spills. The honest drawback is that the nipples can freeze in hard cold, so in a drafty coop I move water outside to a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B00EORGCXY?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">galvanized fount<\/a> in the run, which is also easier to scrub. I compared the two in <a href=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/nipple-waterer-vs-galvanized-fount-for-winter\">nipple waterers versus galvanized founts<\/a>. Whichever you pick, put it where a hen can&#8217;t kick bedding into it, and check it daily.<\/p>\n<h2>Step two: bedding that does its job<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop-04-bedding.jpg\" alt=\"Hens scratching in deep fresh pine shavings beside nest boxes and a pitchfork\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Thin, damp bedding is the other half. I keep about four inches of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B075SP4X2W?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">hemp bedding<\/a> in the coop and stir it every few days with a pitchfork, so that the droppings get mixed down and the dry material stays on top. Pine shavings do the same job and many people prefer them. Hemp is the one I settled on because it stays loose and holds a lot of moisture before it goes soggy.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what I look for when I stir:<\/p>\n<p><strong>A wet or crusty layer under the roost.<\/strong> That&#8217;s where most of the nitrogen lands. I scoop it out and replace it, and I don&#8217;t wait for a full clean-out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dark, damp patches near the waterer.<\/strong> Fix the water first, then take that bedding out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Matted bedding.<\/strong> If it clumps together instead of crumbling, it&#8217;s holding too much moisture and needs to go.<\/p>\n<p>If you run deep litter through the winter, the method works because the carbon in the bedding balances the nitrogen in the droppings. It works best when the pile is dry and gets turned. I wrote the whole method up in <a href=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/deep-litter-method-for-a-winter-coop\">the deep litter method for a winter coop<\/a>. If your deep litter smells sharp, it&#8217;s too wet or too thin on the carbon side, and the answer is more dry bedding, not more cleaning products.<\/p>\n<h2>Step three: let the air move, high up<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop-05-vents.jpg\" alt=\"Hens roosting under an open screened vent along the coop roofline\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>This is the one that took me a winter to believe. A coop that feels warm and still is not a healthy coop. Moisture and ammonia are lighter than the cold air at floor level and rise with the warmth, so you want openings up high, above where the hens roost, to let them leave.<\/p>\n<p>Open vents near the roofline, even in January, and keep the roost area free of direct drafts. A hen&#8217;s feathers can handle the cold. Her lungs don&#8217;t do well with wet, ammonia-heavy air. I laid out how I set this up in <a href=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/how-to-ventilate-a-chicken-coop-in-winter\">how to ventilate a chicken coop in winter<\/a>, and the bigger winter checklist is in <a href=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/how-to-winterize-a-chicken-coop\">how to winterize a chicken coop<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve also learned to do a smell test every morning when I open the door. Stand in the doorway for a breath. If it&#8217;s sharp, something needs fixing today.<\/p>\n<h2>How many birds, how much floor<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop-06-space.jpg\" alt=\"Small mixed flock with plenty of floor space inside a roomy coop\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Crowding makes everything above worse. The usual rule of thumb is about four square feet of coop floor per standard hen, and I&#8217;ve watched flocks run well past that in winter, when everyone is shut in together. More birds on the same floor means more droppings per square foot and more moisture in the air. If you&#8217;ve added hens since last year and the coop has started to smell, the numbers may be the real cause. I learned that the spring I went from eight birds to twelve without touching the coop. It was a tight winter in there, and the bedding paid for it.<\/p>\n<h2>What not to do<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop-07-dont.jpg\" alt=\"Wheelbarrow of old bedding with a rake outside a backyard coop\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>I tried a few shortcuts, so I&#8217;ll save you the trouble. Sprinkling baking soda or scented powder on the floor covers the smell for a few hours and does nothing about the cause. Closing the vents harder does the opposite of what you want. And scrubbing the coop with a strong cleaner and putting the girls back in a damp room just trades one problem for another.<\/p>\n<p>If your hens are sneezing, have watery eyes, or are breathing with an open beak even when it&#8217;s cool, those are signs of respiratory trouble, and it&#8217;s time for your county extension office or a chicken-savvy vet. I&#8217;m not one, and I won&#8217;t pretend a bedding change cures a sick bird.<\/p>\n<h2>A weekly routine that works<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/how-to-reduce-ammonia-in-a-chicken-coop-08-routine.jpg\" alt=\"Hens outside the coop on a frosty morning beside a galvanized waterer on bricks\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the schedule I run from November to March. Every morning, a smell check and a look at the waterer. Every few days, I stir the bedding and pull anything wet. Every week or two, I scoop the droppings under the roost. Once the bedding is spent, a full clean-out. It adds up to about ten minutes a day, and I haven&#8217;t had a watery-eye morning since that December.<\/p>\n<p>I go deeper on coop health, bedding, and the first winter in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B0H2LN9Q9L?tag=almanachouse-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Raising Backyard Chickens for Beginners<\/em><\/a>. It&#8217;s the book I wished I&#8217;d had in my own first year, when I was learning all of this one lost bird at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you can smell ammonia in your coop, your hens are breathing too much of it. Here&#8217;s how I cut it down in winter: dry bedding, dry water, and real airflow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-2184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-backyard-chickens","tag-affiliate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2289,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2184\/revisions\/2289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/confluencemediagroup.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}