A tricky situation...

[enggass]

I will be putting my coop just off my lawn into the woods of my backyard. About 40'-50' from my house. The tricky part is what the floor of my woods are made up of. It is technically a Wetland area (before anyone says anything, I am allowed to do this). So, the surface is rather uneven with lots of growth. Not too wet except after a heavy rain, but I will be putting a roof on my run. I am more concerned with the floorings unevenness. Maybe lumpy is a better description. How would you all handle this? Would you just let the birds take care of the growth and over time they will work the land so to speak? or would you throw in some sort of fill/cover etc? Hard to explain. Tomorrow I can try posting a picture of the location I will be setting up in.
Thanks,
Steve

 

[midget_farms]

I built my coop on a hill - but I raised it up about 2 ft. I set 4 cement post footings & installed 4x4 posts. Then I cut them off level & built the coop on top of that. Doesn't matter what the lay of the land is if you can raise it up. THis also keeps mice from moving in underneath & getting into the coop/food.

 

[enggass]

Thanks. I will be putting the coop on cement blocks embedded in the ground and the coop itself will rise about 24" above that. My concern is the floor of the run and how my birds will handle that or if I should help them in some way by prepping the surface.???
Steve

 

[CARS]

I'm not sure how lumpy it is, but is it something that could be smoothed out with a lawn roller (or if really lumpy a steam roller

) I leveled out some wet, brush covered ground on a dry summer. It is pretty boggy now in spring, but in a normal year it is pretty good and the birds don't mind at all.

 

[patandchickens]

Lumpy is not a problem, assuming you can arrange your run fence so that things won't be able to dig under it.

WET is a problem though, and a roof is not going to solve that problem in a wetland because the water comes up from below. So you are pretty much going to need to add fill (dirt, or sand, or roadbase, or rounded gravel, or whatever) to bring the run up high enough that it will always be distinctly above the waterline (and remember it will settle and chickens will dig holes in it).

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[sgtmom52]

Part of my run is on a slope with very large rocks in it. We left the rocks and the girls have no problems with them ~ in fact they have actually dug around the edges of some of the smaller ones so I can now move them! Our property is on the side of a "hill" covered with rocks like this and larger. Makes it really hard to dig any holes!

 

[gsim]

Quote:

In your place, I would build up sides and raise/level the run. Any vegetation will soon be gone with chooks there anyway. If not, you may be condemning them to miserable and unhealthy conditions in wintertime and rainy spells. There may be restrictions since it is declared officially to be a wetland. I can see no practical problem with raising the run tho since you are not draining away any water from the 'wetland'.

 

[StupidBird]

and if the wetland police call it "fill", you can with all honesty say the (1-2ft) gravel and (6" min) sand are acting as a bio-filter to allow the (nitrates?) in the chicken poo to break down before reaching the water table. Look into it if it's important.

 

[B'villechicken]

I agree with what's been said so far. Wet and muddy is a problem. I excavated about 6"-10" and put in a deep layer of a mixture of coarse san & gravel. This keeps the girls clean, provides grit for their digestion, gives them hours of enjoyable digging time, and provides the biofilter that the previous poster mentioned. My concern with just letting them forage in the native environment is the amount of mud they will create over time. If you plan to fence in a large area then, perhaps, the impact will be less. In that case, you could have a gravel/sand area near the coop with the larger area untouched. If both areas were fenced and a door controlling access, you could restrict their access to the wetland during time of extreme wetness. Good luck and welcome to the madness...!

David

 

[enggass]

You all have told me what I thought might be the case... My plan is to clean up the area and lay down 6" of 3/4" - 1" stone then sand on top of that.
I'd say 1 Yard of each to cover 60Sqft. Drainage and comfort all in one.

What would be better, Dead Sand? or Sharp Sand? or maybe even a 1"- gravel?

Thanks for all of the replies...
Steve