Floor material for the outdoor run?

[Rock Home Isle]

Both the Leaf Litter and the Wood Shavings contain high Carbon content and will do well to absorb and bind up the ammonia generated of the birds.

 

[reesadz]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is leaf litter?

 

[yyz0yyz0]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is leaf litter?

Raked up leaves that you throw into the run for the girls to scratch and throw around.

 

[yyz0yyz0]

I plan on putting three large sandbox type structures in my run area.

One will be filled with compostable materials for the girls to dig through and help break down. Another will be filled with wood ashes, DE and some fine sand for dustbathing. The last will be put in there before the girls and it will be covered with HW cloth, the plan is that the existing grass(which will disappear from the rest of the run) will be able to grow up through the HW cloth so the girls can eat it but not scratch it up. They will have a supply of green material to eat without being able to kill it all.

the rest of the run will just be dirt after then have cleared it of grass and weeds.

 

[noitulover]

We add dirt dug up from the garden (don't ask me what kind! just dirt! lol!). We also throw in some leaves occasionally during the fall. If I pull out too much straw for the coop bedding, I might throw the extra in the run, but other than that, I don't worry about it.

Chickens like to scratch in the dirt!

 

[QuietPony]

I was thinking this same thing! Different buckets for compost scratch and baths that can be cleaned easily.
I was also thinking of putting a smaller flowerpot bath inside the coop for those rainy days.

As far as saving the grass goes, I was able to get some plastic bread trays from my work!
They are blue though. Think I might be able to get away with painting those so they blend in with the landscape more?
I wonder if the birds would scratch of and eat flakes of paint.. Maybe I should hold out for black trays?
Oh! And they said I could take milk crates too! Which I plan to mount in odd spots around their chain link covered playground!

AHHHHHHH!!!! I can't wait! lol