Floor material for the outdoor run?

Summer98

Songster
8 Years
Sep 11, 2011
387
6
101
What is the best material for the outdoor run? We currently have black dirt and it has a tin roof overhead. Should I add sand, gravel, or more black dirt?
 
I'll trade you some red dirt for some of your black dirt lol, dirt will be just fine, but be sure to have something outside with sand or hardwood ash for them to dust off in to prevent critters from nesting on them.
 
A covered run is perfect for letting them peck on dirt, and tossing in your garden and table scraps (no meat IMO) and fall leaves and straw. This turns your run into an extraordinarily healthful composting system, which benefits your chickens and your garden without letting "poop scoop" ever enter into your vocabulary
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! This book is chock full of good info about this, and other flock management subjects: http://www.amazon.com/The-Small-Sca...ie=UTF8&qid=1342278844&sr=8-1&keywords=ussery

Cheers
 
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Put down a few inches of woodshavings and leaf litter and they will be very content scratching through the run looking for bugs and grubs. This will keep odors down to a minimum.

Keep adding to the litter throughout the year and each spring you can empty out the run and put this material in the garden....it will be the best compost.
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I would personally add something in there that is more of a bedding if I were going to. Wood shavings, straw, ect. The gravel could be really hard on the chickens feet. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be on gravel barefoot all day. Dirt or sand would be fine, though.
 
I think I will try adding some leaf litter. They are already digging around in the dirt quite a bit and so I need to add more material. (They are digging trenches, actually, LOL.) They are also dust bathing in the dirt.
 

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