How To Fix A Muddy Run Chicken Coop

Very helpful advice, thank you.
Very helpful, thank you! First time poster here.....I live in a 4-seasons-in-1-day location, with a lot of heavy rain in winter. As I'm a newbie to the region, our run and coop has been a work in progress. There was a LOT of mud over winter! The only shelter being a tarp which was no match for the "roaring 40s", the renowned westerlies in this part of southern Australia. We now boast a partially covered, fully wired (lots of predators in these parts) run and timber coop. As we come into warmer weather, I will be implementing some of the advice, namely raising the coop...There's a lot to be said for dry feet...(chicken and human) 🐔🥾

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Good read. Fortunately, we're on a hill so with the tarp over ours, our babies were high and dry with the deluge all Tuesday, Wednesday and all night last night! I had to go out and clean their waterer and got caught in the downpour, so I actually took shelter in their run until it slacked off a little. ☔
lots of good info
Parts of my run and coop are muddy, I was needing some suggestions and this arrival is enlightening.
Very helpful, practical tips, with details that make a difference. Thank you!
To those folks who are flummoxed by the author's "big whack" of organic material: he means a large amount of whatever kind of straw, wood chips, pine straw, leaves, or other organic material you are adding to lift the chickens up out of the mud. This is colloquial middle American English.
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Very important information. I like this article very much! Muddy runs and coops affect the whole well being of the flock! The flock suffer a lot, and they are living beings! Thank you for bringing this important information.

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Good article. We're fortunate in having soil that drains well. We also have interconnected runs that are pretty large (for nearly 40 birds). One is totally denuded, but the two others are full of weeds -- and that's where the birds like to hang out, in the cool shade and shielded from raptors.
To build up the soil (and provide the birds with some fun), I've raked huge piles of leaves into the bare run, dumped mulch hay there, or even dumped old littler from their coop, the latter containing lots of wood shavings. Going the sand/gravel route, while a great idea, would be expensive for us because of the amount of material required.
I've tried most of these, but a couple give me hope again! I also live in rock and clay. The henhouse is elevated, but the pallets rot in no time from the wetness. Pavers get covered with dirt by the hens. and they all make holes around the perimeters of a large fenced area with a wire roof. (lots of raptors in my area) You've got me thinking about more possibilities!
I have had 2 roosters that got bumblefoot. For one, I fed him medicated chick feed and it cleared up slowly! He couldn't even roost at first, but you can't tell anymore after a year.
A great post with very useful info that is so topical at this time of year in Australia - Thank you. Funnily enough, I was out at my coop last night filling it with grass cuttings as the spring rain was coming today.
Good suggestions for relieving a muddy run. Luckily I do not have too severe a problem with mud. I have a small 4' x 8' coop and run and I have a 10' x 10' pop up tent with windowed sidewalls that I install in the winter. During the summer the tent keeps the rain off of most of the extra space under the tent that I have fenced with a portable dog fence to extend their run. In the winter the sidewalls keep out rain and snow and wind. I have a ditch dug on the high side of the run to diret and water runoff around it. What's nice is that in the winter I can sit under that tent with my flock in a drenching rain or snow storm and be nice and dry and cozy with them. The clear plastic windows lets sun in and it's actually like a little greenhouse and warm in there even on bitter cold sunny days. I do open a side wall on the east side on sunny days so it does not get too warm inside.
That was well done.

We've had good luck laying down a piece of permeable landscape fabric and then covering it with inches of coase gravel. Without the landscape fabric the gravel will just be squished down into the mud when people walk on it. The fabric sort of makes the gravel "float" on top of the mud. With coarse gravel (two inch chunks) the birds can't scratch it away very well and do not dig down to the fabric. If the coarse gravel is hard on the feet then put smaller gravel, roof chip or sand on top to fill in the voids and make a smooth surface.

Sometimes, doing the work in the dry season makes it difficult to know if you have done enough. If you can build up the floor well enough to be dry when working in the wet season then you'll be good.... at least for a while. If the traffic eventually makes it muddy again we just repeat with a second piece of fabric and a second layer of gravel. The more layers you add the more stable it will be.
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Thank you for this!! This is my next project as soon as the rain stops.
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Excellent, useful, practical information.
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Helpful info! I'll be implementing a few of the temporary solutions (bark! why didnt i think of bark instead of itty bitty wood shavings!) during snow season now, and will be ready to start digging a trench when we melt out in spring. Thanks!
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How is this information supposed to help anyone “So add a good big whack of whatever you can readily get.” What does that even mean? That is not helpful at all. What’s a “good big whack”? And how does whatever that is help mud?
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Thank you for this - I have this problem right now after we had a metre of snowfall this week. Its actually my duck run and they look bedraggled even though they usually love mud - I am also worried about mold issues. I had decided last night to lay pallets out as an interim solution - we still have a lot of melt to go. I will plan for a more enduring fix in Spring. Many thanks again Pat !
All this can be a good solution no doubt. I live on clay too and had a muddy run. The soil smelled and after a year it was not alive anymore. However I used another strategy that worked great.
More roads lead to Rome.”

I did not cover it against rain. I made holes with pebbles/gravel for drainage and extended the run to give the chickens more space. I add compost from gardening and lots of brown leaves every autumn to compensate the nitrates in the chicken poop.
I scatter grains in the run that the chickens partly pick up and what they don’t like is growing. My run is partly green now and the soil is alive. I love it this way and I think it’s more natural and healthier for the chickens too.
Good article~
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