Alternative to sand for run?

I have two spots on the back of my house that when it rains, the sand gets wet and there is no sun to dry it. One spot I dont do any maintenance on, it is just sterile. I would have to shovel out all the organic material if it were wet.
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The second spot on the back of my house also gets wet, but i built this light weight, movable platform on legs that is easy to clean and i can put a plastic sheet over in the rain to drain the water away. Some baby chicks sleep there now, and i also isolate sick birds on the top.
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Im just wondering that if you have a problem with wet sand that won't drain and won't dry, how can composting decaying organic material that wont dry possibly be better?

Your setup sounds like it has ideal drainage materials already, but the drainage isn't working because either the terrain isn't sloped properly or there is nowhere for the water to drain. Some type of platform like i built may work for you.

Deep litter is intriguing, but i don't have the materials to try it, and it would not solve my problem. I am building more platforms above the sand as soon as i can.
Oh yeah I should say I’m being a bit dramatic about the drainage. My clumps that get wet it’s been very few spots, mostly when the wind aggressively rips some of the blockers aside slightly and rain gets in and I don’t turn it fully. We have had a lot more heavy rain than normal this month with some bad storms, so even the spots in my yard that are well equipped for draining are pooling. Not ideal all around.

Typically the coop stays very dry on top, but occasionally with a deep clean I can find small pockets deeper down that are wet, and worry about pulling them to the surface. But I imagine the habit of turning deep litter constantly (versus just scooping the obvious poop daily and intermittent deep cleans) would work fine with the amount of rare water spots that get in. I just don’t want to risk any disease or mold etc. Ultimately sounds like deep litter is lower risk than sand though?
 
any recommendations for run floor material?

My vote goes for wood chips. But I would also encourage you to consider turning the entire chicken run into a composting system by adding leaves, grass clippings, and just about anything else organic that you can find. My chicken run compost "floor" is about 12 inches deep and it never smells or gets muddy.
 
We have a layer of pea gravel under the sand currently, under that is a bit of dirt and then we have pavers laid about 10 inches deep but not fully connected, just rodent back up defense. If I’m going to start deep litter, should I try to get all of the pea gravel out too or okay as the very base?
Probably not worth the labor of removing the pea gravel, as long as the flock isn't already digging down to it.

If they were unearthing the gravel or you had smell issues due to poop washing down to the gravel level, then in that case it may be worth the time and effort to remove it.
 
I ca
Oh yeah I should say I’m being a bit dramatic about the drainage. My clumps that get wet it’s been very few spots, mostly when the wind aggressively rips some of the blockers aside slightly and rain gets in and I don’t turn it fully. We have had a lot more heavy rain than normal this month with some bad storms, so even the spots in my yard that are well equipped for draining are pooling. Not ideal all around.

Typically the coop stays very dry on top, but occasionally with a deep clean I can find small pockets deeper down that are wet, and worry about pulling them to the surface. But I imagine the habit of turning deep litter constantly (versus just scooping the obvious poop daily and intermittent deep cleans) would work fine with the amount of rare water spots that get in. I just don’t want to risk any disease or mold etc. Ultimately sounds like deep litter is lower risk than sand though?

Sounds like everyone in the thread who uses it says go for it. I can not answer about the deep litter, but I think it would be worth trying. If you find it doesnt work, it can be undone. I have almost 500 sqft of chicken coop areas it isnt an enclosed space.
 
Im just wondering that if you have a problem with wet sand that won't drain and won't dry, how can composting decaying organic material that wont dry possibly be better?

Moisture is necessary for the composting process.

Not sogginess, but moisture.

There's no bedding that can possibly fix persistent sogginess due to poor drainage. :)
 
When I first started out as @3KillerBs knows, I was an avid poop raker/picker upper :lau when it came to the run, couldn't stand the thought of poop accumulating in the run and just couldn't wrap my head around how a bunch of yard brush would keep things from smelling...fast forward 6 months. After reading and researching and reading some more I said what the hell and gave it a whirl(was seriously sick of picking up chicken poop)and if it didn't work out I could rake it all out and go back to my life of poop servitude, lol. I have been using deep litter in my run ever since, just got done with a mass yard mowing/raking/leaf mulching and threw it all in the run(bark, leaves, dead grass, some green grass, wood chunks). Best part is that you just chuck it in there, your ladies will do all the rest of the work for you by spreading it and turning it. No stink! I'll end up with a few bags of leaves before winter hits that I'll stash in my husbands shop and throw out there throughout the winter.
 
When I first started out as @3KillerBs knows, I was an avid poop raker/picker upper :lau when it came to the run, couldn't stand the thought of poop accumulating in the run and just couldn't wrap my head around how a bunch of yard brush would keep things from smelling...fast forward 6 months. After reading and researching and reading some more I said what the hell and gave it a whirl(was seriously sick of picking up chicken poop)and if it didn't work out I could rake it all out and go back to my life of poop servitude, lol. I have been using deep litter in my run ever since, just got done with a mass yard mowing/raking/leaf mulching and threw it all in the run(bark, leaves, dead grass, some green grass, wood chunks). Best part is that you just chuck it in there, your ladies will do all the rest of the work for you by spreading it and turning it. No stink! I'll end up with a few bags of leaves before winter hits that I'll stash in my husbands shop and throw out there throughout the winter.
Wondering what exactly you do (or don't) add to the chicken run for composting? Also wondering if adding all the food attracts animals? That was my husband's big reason for not wanting to do this.
 
Wondering what exactly you do (or don't) add to the chicken run for composting? Also wondering if adding all the food attracts animals? That was my husband's big reason for not wanting to do this.
any food scraps, garden weeds, and lots of fall leaves that people kindly bag for some reason. 3-4 runs of charged wire on insulators around the fence keep the predators and pests out. It is 2 birds with one stone: you are protecting both chickens and your compost pile.
 
When I first started out as @3KillerBs knows, I was an avid poop raker/picker upper :lau when it came to the run, couldn't stand the thought of poop accumulating in the run and just couldn't wrap my head around how a bunch of yard brush would keep things from smelling...fast forward 6 months. After reading and researching and reading some more I said what the hell and gave it a whirl(was seriously sick of picking up chicken poop)and if it didn't work out I could rake it all out and go back to my life of poop servitude, lol. I have been using deep litter in my run ever since, just got done with a mass yard mowing/raking/leaf mulching and threw it all in the run(bark, leaves, dead grass, some green grass, wood chunks). Best part is that you just chuck it in there, your ladies will do all the rest of the work for you by spreading it and turning it. No stink! I'll end up with a few bags of leaves before winter hits that I'll stash in my husbands shop and throw out there throughout the winter.

:thumbsup That's the way to do it.

After my chickens ate all the grass down to bare dirt, I turned my chicken run into a chicken run composting system, throwing all my yard debris and just about anything else organic into the run. Never any smells, never any mud, and the chickens love it. I never have to clean out the chicken run. What I do is harvest some of the compost when I want it for my gardens. My chicken run litter is between 12-18 inches deep at any time. I only have to rake off the top few inches before I strike black gold compost.
 
Also wondering if adding all the food attracts animals? That was my husband's big reason for not wanting to do this.

I suppose it may depend on what animals you have living in your area. The small amount of food scraps I feed to my chickens in the morning is all gone within minutes. So there are no food scraps left to speak of to attract animals. The natural grass clippings, leaves, wood chips, etc... turning into compost has never attracted any animals to my chicken run compost system.

If I go out fishing and have lots of fish guts to throw in the chicken run after cleaning the fish, my chickens will not typically eat all of it. So, I will either dig a hole in the chicken run compost and cover it or pile up a mound of compost on top of the remains at night to cover the smell. So far, I have never had any problems with that solution.

I would agree that you don't want to attract animals into your chicken run, but that has never been an issue for me where I live. Also, I lock my chickens up in a Fort Knox coop every night that has been predator proof.
 

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