"
SAND IN YOUR RUN/COOP/BROODER? (click HERE to listen) Peter Brown, aka The Chicken Doctor just explained how having sand in your run may increase the chance of having a coccidiosis breakout!!! Great show today about managing litter, bedding, and runs to control coccidiosis!"
http://fresheggsdaily.com/2013/07/the-real-scoop-on-using-sand-in-your.html
Another long-time chicken keeper said "Sand is known to harbor e.Coli and coccidiosis. The combination in a brooder of sand, feces and the warm, moist environment under a heat lamp is a disaster waiting to happen. It's the perfect climate for all types of bacteria and pathogens to grow very rapidly and sicken chicks."
In some cases, the pathogen will multiply out of control for the reasons stated above. In other cases, the sharp edges of the sand actually kill all the coccidia microbes, which can be just as bad since that prevents the chicks from being exposed to even small amounts, which they need in order to build an immunity.
Thank you for posting that, although it's far from being a scientific research article backed by studies conducted under the scientific method. Reading through it, the arguments are one-sided, only backed up by very scanty anecdotal evidence. Many of us have been using sand in coops, runs and brooders for close to a decade or longer, and have seen no evidence of sand harboring cocci. I personally have never had a case of cocci in my decade of chicken keeping and I've had a number of fecal tests performed by an agricultural lab to confirm this.
Chicks have thrived on sand, and common sense would dictate to anyone with half a brain cell to provide shade in the form of a covered run in summer and cover the run against moisture buildup from snow and rain during those seasons. I can't see how sand in coops can get so wet as to freeze to the hardness of concrete. By the way, as much as I hate heat lamps, sand at 95 F isn't going to burn. It would need to be much, much hotter.
As with anything, it would depend on the quality of individual management practices, no matter what medium one uses in coop, run, and brooder, whether disease will flourish.
The author refutes their own statement that sand does not absorb heat by dwelling on how hot sand can get under a summer sun and a heat lamp, not even pointing out that the sources of overheating are easily mitigated by not using a heat lamp over sand as well as providing shade over a run in summer. Yes, chicks eat sand, but they also eat shavings. Whether a chick develops crop issues depends on the individual chick. There is no more evidence that sand causes brooder deaths than pine shavings.
Just another example of how anyone can say anything with ample authority and conviction and it will sound believable. This is why evidence in the form of numerous people who have years of anecdotal experience is a much better source of information than a single poorly sourced article. Of course, a scientific study backed up by scientific evidence is even better.
