Anyone use SAND in the run/coop

[ilovemy7chicken]

Hello I'm new to raising chickens. I just moved my 5 week old chicks into the new coop and I'm thinking about switching to sand. We laid vinyl flooring to keep the wood floor from rotting if I put sand in the coop do I need to add another liner or is the vinyl enough. (I'd hate to tell my hub we just spent $60 of vinyl when we need something else. Also Would sand be ok in a Western PA winter?

 

[ilovemy7chicken]

I wouldn't put sand in the coop for babies. We have shavings on the floor of the coop and they really need to only go under your roosting bar. You can put sand in your run. Sand helps keep down the mud and that's only if they ate up all your grass already. Since yours are babies. I would wait awhile.

 

[Messipaw]

I use it in my coop and part of my run. I love it and so do my hens.

 

[ilovemy7chicken]

I think it would make it harder to give your coop a good clean out with sand in it. We wash down the walls, nests and floors twice a year. I love sand in my run. It really keeps everything clean. Everyone has their own way of doing things. My hens prefer hay for their nests. Some people will only use shavings. It's all about making your girls happy in the end so we get nice big pretty eggs!

 

[RoosterThigh]

I put my chicks out at 4 weeks and I used sand. They love it and almost immediately started taking dust baths in it. I sprinkle DE on it every once in a while.

The muck rake to clean it out with lined with 1/4" hardware cloth is a great idea. It was a little too big for my coop though to use comfortably. I devised my own tool by using a sturdy dustpan and drilling holes all over it. I had to use a drill press because it took so many holes to work well that my arm was killing me to use a hand drill.

Here is a picture and it does work very well for my coop which is 5X8, but with nest boxes the floor space is 4X8.

 

[annettemb]

We love it in our coop!!! It is very easy to clean and rake. We add DE and Sweet PDZ to the sand as well. It really keeps down smell!

 

[Oakhillpekes]

I put washed construction grade sand in my coop & covered run and really don't care for it. It's dusty and I didn't need a giant kitty litter box to pick & scoop every couple days and the chickens always seem to have crap covered feet. I want to switch mine over to a method that turns the run into a giant composting bin. I'd like to clean it out once a year and use it on my garden. Anyone got any ideas on switching from sand to the deep litter method? I guess that's what it's called. Yesterday, I dumped a bag of pine chips on the sand and my girls went crazy and spread it all out. Was I suppose to remove the sand first?

 

[lookyhereboy]

I put my chicks out at 4 weeks and I used sand. They love it and almost immediately started taking dust baths in it. I sprinkle DE on it every once in a while.

The muck rake to clean it out with lined with 1/4" hardware cloth is a great idea. It was a little too big for my coop though to use comfortably. I devised my own tool by using a sturdy dustpan and drilling holes all over it. I had to use a drill press because it took so many holes to work well that my arm was killing me to use a hand drill.

Here is a picture and it does work very well for my coop which is 5X8, but with nest boxes the floor space is 4X8.

Nice tool. I started by scooping the poop out of the sand but with all the scratching the girls do it just gets buried and bio degrades anyway. So as a test I stopped scooping to see if it would smell bad. Nope not an issue. The only time the run gets an odor is when it rains and gets wet and that is the same whether poop is scoop or not. I do turn the sand by raking it every week or two but haven't seen the need to continue the poop scooping effort. Now I just clean the poop out of their hen house every morning. Small hen house and only four chickens so it is about a 5 second job.

 

[SherriPalmer]

I'm still a newbie, my first chicks are 7 weeks old. I have a plastic SnapLock coop. Another point is that we're keeping the coop on our front porch until their big run is ready. I switched from shavings to sand about a week ago and am very happy with it.The shavings were messy on the patio where spilled sand sweeps into the garden. VERY easy to use a small kitty litter scoop to run though the sand every night when they go back inside. We will use washed construction sand in the run and coop when it's all ready. RIght now I'm using washed kids' sandbox sand from Home Depot. I don't like how it is when water spills on it and look forward to the other kind of sand. I guess having an indoor cat has made me quite used to scooping poop...I don't mind it and love how the coop looks sparkling clean when they go to bed at night!

 

[stefan333]

It's now been a month since our 3 coops have gone from deep litter to sand. No more water logged moldy maggot breeding bedding, my white chickens are no longer dirty, and they love to dust bathe in the sand. When the sand gets wet it dries up rather quickly, and it doesn't smell nearly as bad. Our grass is starting to grow back in the run where the bedding tracked out and smothered it. I haven't even had to hose down our deck or shoes or sweep/mop the kitchen floor from tracking in clumpy poo wood shavings on our shoes. The worst part of the deep litter method was trying to clean it out in order to put the sand in. My suggestion for anyone who has a bigger walk in coop with a dirt floor is to try sand first, because doing it the other way around (switching from deep litter to sand) is beyond back breaking and yucky. Hubby said it was comparable to burning poo in Iraq.