Best footing for use in temporary chicken run

[ralleia]

Our chicken coop is located a bit too far from the house and also down a hill that I have gotten tired of falling down in the deep snow and ice. We plan on building a new coop closer to the house either this summer or next and planting windbreak trees where the current coop is.

In the interim, our clay soil turns the fenced chicken run into a sloppy, slippery mess every time it rains. What would be a good footing material for the run that would deal with the slippery mess while also being good for an eventual planting? My main concerns are 1) not damaging to any augers or tillers that we may use on the soil and 2) of benefit as a soil amendment for trees, potentially improving the drainage of clay soil?

Fine sand is right out--as it doesn't actually improve drainage in clay, but just about anything else is a possibility if I can get my hands on enough of it. The run is roughly 12 x 18 feet.

 

[patandchickens]

If it will only temporarily be a chicken run, and the clayiness is more of a problem than wetness per se, you want something coarse organic, such as nontoxic tree chippings or mulch. (Or straw, but IMO it is harder to deal with outdoors and gets nastier more easily). Also consider doing everything you can to divert water so it doesn't *get* so muddy, see my 'fixing a muddy run' page (link in .sig below) for suggestions on a multi-pronged strategy.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[ralleia]

I like your fixin' the mud page and will be studying it in detail tomorrow. We also have a much LARGER problem of mud and erosion in the one-acre horse "pasture," which has turned to mud and weeds. It's fairly high ground, but spring brings torrential rains, and the horse has destroyed the vegetation to the point where there is nothing to hold the soil in place any longer.

Nothing is easy, especially when you have no experience in how to fix it.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Yes well but the way you get experience in how to fix things is often to have had the problem in the first place, so think of it as education LOL

Some thoughts for your horse pasture even though you didn't ask (I am primarily a horse person and most of my mud-control [or mud-out-of-control] experience is from that sort of thing):

It sounds like what you desperately need is an all-weather sacrifice pen, a smaller paddock (can be subdivided out of this acre if no other land is available) that you've put some money and work into making so it will NOT get muddy and the horse can be confined there a) when the pasture is too soft and will be damaged by hooves or b) when the pasture is going to get overgrazed if you don't limit the horse's access.

In general what you would be doing is making friends with someone with a bobcat, tractor-with-blade-on-front, or other small earthmoving equipment; removing all topsoil from the designated area, and grading the subsoil to a slope or crowned configuration; then putting on 4-6" compacted depth (or more) of 3/4"-minus gravel, machine-compact the living daylights out of it as if you were building a commercial parking lot or public gravel road, then add 4-6" of sand or pea gravel or suchlike on top of it. (Some people will use hogfuel/tree-chippings instead, but this can backfire in many situations so you would want to have thought that thru very carefully). Add a shed for shelter (preferably with rubber matting on at least some of the floor, so you can feed your hay there without the horse eating sand) and there ya go.

You can then control the horse's access to the pasture so as to limit it to what the pasture can reasonably-sustainably support.

If the pasture is catching runoff from higher ground, it can also be worthwhile, perhaps while you have a machine there preparing the site for your all-weather sacrifice pen, or if you want to spend an hour or two a day with a shovel for a good long while, to dig a diversion ditch uphill of your pasture, so that more fo the water goes *around* rather than thru the area. This is more fruitful in some sites than others of course, but always worth considering.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat