Sand, Sand and more Sand...

[BoltonChicken]

Silica is the second most common element in the Earth's crust

Call a cement or brick company, and have them bring you a load of the cheapest sand they have, and dont overanalyze everything, because its ALL the same

Amen!

 

[wildpeas]

Is this a sand type product or is it more like gravel?

Its somewhere in between. Its more like a coarse sand than a gravel and when we lived in Socal it was pretty inexpensive.

 

[FrozenCanadian]

You don't really need to be too fussy about sand.

A few days ago, I had a tractor dump 1 ton of regular sand for my coop and run (coop is 4X6.5 and total run space is 45 Sq.Feet.) About 600 kilos was enough (1 300 pounds).

If you want to make their coop and run a little more "coarse", you could buy 3 or 4 bags of screening (stone dust is the correct term i think) and you'll be fine.

Let's not forget that industrial farmer with free range hens aren't ever going to buy 500 tons of specific coarse sand for their hens.

The idea is to have something that "exfoliates" their feet and allows them to take dust baths.

 

[MamaBear46]

Ok im not really putting an opinion in just another question. We are planning on using my mom's old horse barn(one stall only please) for her chickens. the floor is very compacted I was thinking of telling her to get some sand in the stall for them or will the chickens loosen the compacted stuff for their use?

 

[RachelCheyenne]

I turned a horse stall into a chicken coop for mine and had the same problem; floor was like a brick it was so compact. I used a thick layer of sawdust (no cedar) and about once a month I'll go in and rake out feathers and the majority of the nasty stuff and then I'll mix up the sawdust, moving the bottom to top and top to bottom. If it gets dusty I'll mist it but I've only had to do that once.