Chicken Run Flooring--Questions about concrete, sand, gravel

[Chicksomeday]

Hello,

I am preparing for the arrival of my chicks in a couple of weeks. We are working on our covered run this weekend. The coop (plywood & vinyl floor) and run are on the footprint of an old outbuilding we demolished. This left a 12 x 10 pad of concrete pavers. I was planning on leaving the pavers as flooring for the run, but read that concrete will be irritating to their feet and am now having second thoughts

Do I remove the concrete pavers, and put down sand?

If I put down sand, do I need to do a gravel base? The soil is compacted from the concrete pavers, and the run is covered.

The girls will also have supervised free range time in our backyard.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[bj taylor]

in my opinion, chickens need to be able to 'scratch'. it's in their dna. I wouldn't worry about the soil being compacted. they will scratch it & work very hard to take dust baths in it & will loosen it up quite a lot.
if you throw scratch in there sometimes that will encourage them to dig even more.

hope you completely enjoy your chicks.

 

[chfite]

I would remove the pavers and add 4 to 6 inches of sand to the run. The chickens will scratch the soil and sand, mixing it together. The sand will pretty much eliminate the need to clean the run, because the chickens will keep the soil turned over. Chickens scratch all the time, so they will be happy.

Chris