Run ground---what is best? Grass or Dirt or Sand??

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PlaidBattleAxe

PlaidBattleAxe

Chirping
6 Years
Jan 2, 2014
377
25
88
Pennsylvania/New York Border
I've been hounding coop design/run design picture postings for a while to get the best picture of how to tweak mine that is in progress. I'm ready to move the coop into my yard, but as far as the run goes-----what is the best medium? I see as many people with grass runs and sand runs and dirt runs... What are the pros and cons? I live in the northwestern part of PA on the shore of Lake Erie. Our weather gets tempered by the great lake, but we still tend to have a lot of wet weather. My yard grows grass and plants like a jungle, so I don't necessarily think soupy yard would be an issue, but then again I've never had chickens before, so I'm not sure if I would be better off leaving the grass in the run or putting in sand or soil. Ideas/input please?
 
Grass will be dirt in a few days. Lol I just have dirt. It was grass, but now it's dirt. I have no problems with it.
 
4 chickens turned my grass run into dirt in about 2 days. Then it rained and turned to mud so I added sand. When I redo my run I'm just going to dump tons of sand in there.
 
Before you get any plans set in stone for the run floor, might I suggest looking into deep litter? Start with a generous layer of, say, pine shavings, straw, or whatever you want, really, as long as it's nice and dried out. Chicken poop will get scratched into the litter and buried instead of sitting on the dirt and stinking up your yard. Just add fresh litter on top of the old stuff as needed (as it gets less shallow with composting), stir it up a bit now and then, it does a great job keeping odor under control, you won't have to shovel poop or rake sand, and I highly recommend reading up on it. :)
 
jasmer said:
Before you get any plans set in stone for the run floor, might I suggest looking into deep litter? Start with a generous layer of, say, pine shavings, straw, or whatever you want, really, as long as it's nice and dried out. Chicken poop will get scratched into the litter and buried instead of sitting on the dirt and stinking up your yard. Just add fresh litter on top of the old stuff as needed (as it gets less shallow with composting), stir it up a bit now and then, it does a great job keeping odor under control, you won't have to shovel poop or rake sand, and I highly recommend reading up on it. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll definitely read up on it. Eau de poo is something I'll definitely readily put work into minimizing!
 
I posted this on another query:

My run is 14'x14'. I started my run with a minimum of 10 inches of free wood chips supplied by a local tree service. Five years later, my run is 8 to 20 inches high of compost - the top 5 or 6 inches being fresh wood chips and leaf litter. I have never cleaned the run. No odors, no mud, no bugs. Water drains well from the "hill". The level seems to remain constant, fine compost also disappears out of the coop's 1/2 inch screen as the chickens kick it out.
 

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