Chicken run floor...??

[NatJ]

will bag leaves and save for run.

If you already have the chicken run, there is no need to bag the leaves. Just put them straight in the run when you collect them in the fall.

 

[linguini]

I use sand and occasionally toss in all the weeds/grass from my garden to reduce the smell. Pretty much no maintenance. So far I've only cleaned the run once since last August and replace with new sand.
I put all the poopy sand+organic matter into buckets/tubs (from flowers/plants) and saved them as compost for gardening! I also just requested a free woodchips dump (thanks to the BYC forum experts!) Not sure when they will show up. It's a bit scary since they'll dump 20 cubic yard at a time - and won't give you any warning. It'll probably fill up our driveway. I'll figure out what/how to move the pile when it comes!

 

[rosemarythyme]

Bedding is pretty much the only thing free in my set up. We have wood chips from when we had trees taken down (but tree companies here will drop off loads for free), dried leaves that I collect in fall for use through the year, lawn clippings, weed clumps, garden trimmings, etc. We get a lot of rain but the deep litter lets plenty of water drain through, controls mud and odor, and reduces the amount of green waste we generate.

 

[Joyfillednomads]

Bedding is pretty much the only thing free in my set up. We have wood chips from when we had trees taken down (but tree companies here will drop off loads for free), dried leaves that I collect in fall for use through the year, lawn clippings, weed clumps, garden trimmings, etc. We get a lot of rain but the deep litter lets plenty of water drain through, controls mud and odor, and reduces the amount of green waste we generate.

Free fertilizer... lol

 

[gtaus]

Best chicken run floor...???

Like others have mentioned, I think the gold standard is wood chips. But I get all the free wood chips I can use from our country landfill. The county charges the commercial arborists to dump their wood chips at the landfill, but we are free to take as many as we want from the landfill. If you are lucky, you might have a county landfill that provides free wood chips. Some people use Chipdrop, but I don't have anybody locally signed up for that service.

I also have both a gas chipper and a smaller electric chipper. In theory I can make my own wood chips, and I do with fallen branches and such in the yard, but it would take me hours and hours to chip up a load of wood chips that I can fill up in 15 minutes at the landfill.

Although I started out using just wood chips in the chicken run after the chickens ate and scratched the grass down to bare dirt, I soon decided to turn my chicken run into a chicken run compost system. I now dump all my grass clippings and leaves in the chicken run and just let the chickens turn it into compost. Then I sift the compost to use in my gardens.

When I mow my lawn, the lawn mower picks up lots of brown material along with the grass clippings. My initial concern was that dumping the grass clippings in the chicken run would be too much greens and grass clippings can mat down and start to smell when wet. This time of year, however, I get more dead brown material left over from winter than I do of fresh green grass. So, nice compost mixture without really trying. Later in the summer, the grass clippings will not have much brown material in it, so I will spread out the grass clippings allowing the chickens to eat what they want, and the rest gets a chance to dry out.

If I get too much green grass clippings later in the summer, I will throw in some leaves I saved from last fall. I like to alternate layers of greens and browns, and the chickens will mix it up themselves as they scratch and peck through the compost.

My chicken run compost system smells like a forest floor. Very nice. I never have to clean out my chicken run as I just let the litter compost in place. When I need compost for the garden, I'll harvest what I need when I need it.

Years ago, I used sand. But it required constant cleaning and yet it still smelled bad to me. Ditto with using straw. My life is now so much better with using wood chips, and then deciding to turn the chicken run into a compost system which also feeds my garden.

Having said all that, I would still advise someone to use whatever free material they can get their hands on. It took me awhile and a number of phone calls to find our local county landfill with free wood chips. But all that effort was worth it and now I have a great free resource of wood chips whenever I want to load out. And I have all the free grass clippings and leaves I can use just from my own yard. Good luck on setting up your chicken run.

 

[Tilhana]

Oh like kitty liter, ok, no thanks. Lol
Love free stuff. Yes, on my WISH LIST is a wood chipper, not the little blender kind that only do 4" branches, but a semi-pro lawn service type

I also like woodchips. Even fresh ones are ok in my experience - I keep my coop door open during the day and even when I put in wet woodchips they seem to dry out within a couple of days. Anyway I've never had an issue with mold, I just pile more chips on top of the poop piles and a few times a year I scoop out the whole mess and use it as compost.

But from what I've heard, wood chippers are not only very expensive but also a huge pain to maintain. I can't speak from experience but what I've always heard is that they're not worth owning because they're constantly breaking and needing to be repaired. Maybe the commercial grade ones are better, but those probably cost about 3x as much as the consumer ones.

You might consider renting one, or, if you live in a heavily wooded area, call your local Department of Public Works (or whatever the equivalent is in your town), and find out if they will drop woodchips off at your house. If they say no, try to catch one of the trucks clearing branches after a storm and just ask them if you can have that load once they've filled up. The ones in my town are always happy to do it - they normally have to pay to drop them at a dump site, so someone offering to take them for free is a bonus. If you get some hesitation, offer them $20 for it (or whatever).

If you're having trouble finding the local guys at work, you could try calling the phone or power company and ask them who they hire to do their tree work. They are constantly having to clear branches from the lines. Then you can call the tree trimmers directly. If all else fails there's Chipdrop. It's never worked for me because I'm just a little too far out in the boonies, I guess. It all depends on whether your local tree chippers use the site or not, and ours apparently don't. But it works for a lot of people.

 

[BecaHawaii]

Best chicken run floor...???
Trying to convince hubby that sand and rocks would drain well.
He's over the "dirt" turned into ""mudd"

I am in a unique area. So my base is lava, my floor is dirt. My rain average is approximately 4" a week with my rainy season just ended with 6" a day 4x a week. I love the deep bed method for wet areas. IF YOU HAVE PROPER DRAINAGE. My girls find rocks I didn't even know were in there.

Maybe try some large rocks under the run. It cleans it self.

 

[Redhead_Gardener]

Best chicken run floor...???
Trying to convince hubby that sand and rocks would drain well.
He's over the "dirt" turned into ""mudd"

In the process of building our run now. For us.. We get a good amount of flooding. We actually have to raise the flooring of our run up. We plan on using a linoleum. Cheap material and easy clean. Just rake up old hay or shavings and hose down. Because lumber is so expensive at the moment, we are also using landscape timbers for much of the building. Much cheaper than 2x4s and other boards at the moment. Unbroken down pallets will be the floor support for linoleum. It's a work in progress at the moment. Good Luck with your building!

 

[gtaus]

But from what I've heard, wood chippers are not only very expensive but also a huge pain to maintain. I can't speak from experience but what I've always heard is that they're not worth owning because they're constantly breaking and needing to be repaired. Maybe the commercial grade ones are better, but those probably cost about 3x as much as the consumer ones.

From my experience, home consumer gas wood chippers do require lots of maintenance. Where I live in northern Minnesota, my chipper sits in the shed about 6 months over winter. That is 6 months for the gas to gunk up the carburetor and cause hard starting or poor running. In theory, I can chip up to 3 inch round branches. In real life, just about anything over 2 inches round gets thrown into a burn pile because it is too hard on the chipper. Even though I paid $$$ to have the blade sharpened, it seems to get dull way too fast. Although I have had my gas chipper for over 30 years, and it still works, it is a PITA to get started and keeping it in running condition. If/When my gas chipper dies, I will not replace it.

My little 14 amp electric SunJoe chipper is great for small branches up to 1.5 inches round. Again, I try to keep it about 1 inch or less. The electric chipper is so much easier to maintain. The only thing you need to do it rotate or replace the blades when they get dull. I find my new blades last about 2 hours before they get dull and need to be rotated or replaced. I am still working on a jig to sharpen my blades, but have not perfected it yet. The downside to the electric chippers is that they cannot stand up to much use. I have had my original chipper replaced twice under warranty (2 years).

Did I get my money's worth out of my electric SunJoe chipper? Yes, I tracked how many cubic feet of wood chips I made with the chipper and it did chip enough wood that it would have cost me more money to buy bags of wood chips at the big box stores. However, it takes a very long time to chip any amount of wood chips. It probably takes me about 2 hours to chip enough wood to be equivalent to buying a $2.00 bag of wood chips at Menards. Is your labor time of 2 hours worth just paying $2.00 for a bag of wood chips?

As I said, I now get as many wood chips as I want for free at our local county landfill. I can fill up my small trailer in about 20 minutes. It would probably take me about 40 hours to chip up that much wood at home.

I still use my chippers at home. When a storm passes and I have broken branches down on the ground, I'll use my chippers and throw the wood chips into the coop or the chicken run. If I have to prune branches or trim the hedges, I'll chip up those branches too. But I don't go out of my way to find wood just for the sake of chipping it up. It just makes more sense for me to hitch up the trailer and make a run to the landfill a couple times a year and load out wood chips in about 20 minutes.

@Joyfillednomads, if you buy a pro level chipper just for making wood chips for your chickens, it will probably never pay for itself. My home consumer gas chipper cost me about $1200.00, and I would never buy another one if I only was going to use it to make wood chips for my chickens. I could buy wood chips for life at the big box stores and not have to do any work. A pro chipper will cost a lot more money.

FWIW, since I have both a gas and an electric chipper, is that I would not recommend either one if you can get chips for free. If you have light clean up in your yard, like after storms, then the electric chipper is one way to clean up the small debris and using the chips instead of burning or hauling away the branches to the landfill. But it takes a lot of manual labor and time with the small home consumer chippers. I will not be replacing my gas chipper if/when it dies.

 

[raingarden]

I wouldn't stand for or stand in mud and would start by dumping enough gravel to make the site drain. Build the coop on top of the gravel then add litter.