My Mud Eradication Project
When I originally set up my chicken coop and run, I just bungied a tarp across the flat wire roof I put on the dog kennel. This worked (kind of) until it filled with rain, causing the wire roof to sag and tear. It also never did a great job of keeping out the rain. For a few years I just didn't worry about the tarp--there is a tree over the kennel and I hoped that would be enough. But the pen has become increasingly muddy and nasty (there really is NOTHING quite as gross as the combo of mud and chicken poop, and it's almost impossible to separate one from the other!). So this year I embarked on a Mud Eradication Project, taking as my bible the great page by BYCer patandchickens, How to Fix a Muddy Run. Thanks, Pat!
Step 1 of Pat's instructions involves intercepting the water before it can enter the run. To do this, I purchased a dog kennel cover (commercially available at Tractor Supply Company ). It is basically a tarp stretched on a tubular steel pitched roof [Note: there is a wire cover under the pitched roof to keep out predators]. This is working out great: it greatly reduces the amount of rain coming into the run, giving the hens more days when they can stay outdoors and keeping the mud down a great deal. The picture below shows the run after the pen top was added but before the footing was improved.
Step 2 of Pat's instructions involves temporary first aid (in the form of adding organic material such as pine bark chips, etc. to reduce mud). I skipped this step, as I have done this in the past and found that I mostly just ended up, within a few months, with even more mud as the material broke down.
Step 3 is to add a permanant replacement for the muddy footing in the form of gravel, sand or both. I used both.
Here is the run footing before I started. This is in June--wish I had a photo of it during March or April, but you'll just have to imagine how UTTERLY disgusting it was!
Once the landscaping fabric and retaining boards were in, I added gravel. This is crusher run (or crush and run), which is partly gravel and partly crushed stone. I have a big pile on my farm, so I just used what I already had. Because of the landscaping fabric, I only put in about 2" of gravel (that was hard enough work!).
And here are my girls enjoying their new run! The Barred Rock is Clarice, my dominant hen. Svetlana is the red sex-link. Olivia, the pretty Buff Orp X, recently left us. :-( More on all the girls here.
