Chicken run ground

[MidlandChicks]

Hi everyone, we just finished building our chicken run tonight and have a quick question. Should we put something on the ground in the chicken run like shavings or sand or something else? What did y’all do with yours?

It’s currently dirt and it’s a covered area. Here’s a picture of the area from yesterday when we were still working on it just to give you an idea. It’s too dark to get a good picture of the finished product right now. Thanks!

 

[nuthatched]

Mine is normal old dirt.
I've seen anything, whether stones, chips or shavings form a solid layer with the poop and create a crust that vermin live under.

 

[Chookchicken]

We covered the bottom of ours in wood chips. We used to use hay. The problem with hay is that once it got wet it went really moist and muddy. When it got cold it wouldn’t get the chance to dry out and would be extremely muddy for 5-7 months every year. Since we have started using wood chips the whole coop has gotten a lot more clean. It’s no longer a fly breeding ground.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Thick layer of wood chip/bark mulch. Like the brown chunky stuff they used to put around playgrounds. It's fantastic.

 

[Lemon-Drop]

Mine is dirt, though I sometimes spread dirty shavings or straw around, which they like to scratch around in.

 

[Lemon-Drop]

Where are you located? Very dry climates can have success with sand, although where I’m at (PNW) it doesn’t work well.

 

[MidlandChicks]

This is so helpful! Thank you for the quick responses. We’re in North Carolina so not too dry here. I like the idea of either leaving it as dirt or using wood chips. We have a landscaping place down the road from us that sells mulch/wood chips, etc. in bulk so we could easily get some from there and spread them in the run for our chicks. Thanks guys!!

 

[3KillerBs]

This is so helpful! Thank you for the quick responses. We’re in North Carolina so not too dry here. I like the idea of either leaving it as dirt or using wood chips. We have a landscaping place down the road from us that sells mulch/wood chips, etc. in bulk so we could easily get some from there and spread them in the run for our chicks. Thanks guys!!

from the Sandhills.

Here in NC we have a locally-available resource that's often free for the raking in our own yards -- pine straw!

It's not as absorbent as the coarse wood chips that are often recommended as the gold standard for mud and odor control, but it has the advantage of being highly resistant to packing and matting and also drying out on top quickly after even tropical storm levels of rain.

 

[NatJ]

You can also toss in any chicken-safe things you want composted.
The chickens will eat some of the things, and scratch the rest around.
That works best if you have plenty of dry material (like wood chips and dry leaves) to balance out the wet things (like watermelon rinds and cantalope seeds).

The chickens like having a variety of stuff to scratch through, and after a few years you can dig out the bottom layers of compost to use on any kind of plants you are growing.

When you clean the coop, you can toss that bedding out into the run too, if you want.

If you go with sand, then none of that applies. Sand appears to work best in dry climates, with nothing else mixed in. Then you can scoop droppings the way people scoop cat litter. It is a very different way to manage the area. (I've never personally done sand, but I've read other people's posts about it.)

 

[Farmgirl1878]

Sand also works in high humidity and wet climates like mine. I live in the bottom of a crick holler (valley) at about thirty feet elevation from the crick (or creek for those of you who don’t speak Appalachian). I have sand in the coop, nestboxes, and inside the covered run. The key is the cover. And the depth of the sand. The sides of the run are open, but the entire thing has either a metal roof or is covered with a hoop roof (pvc pipe frame covered with a heavy duty clear, reinforced tarp).

You can see the metal wok spider I use to scoop poop in the pic. The handle is 36” long. It’s from Amazon.

We use natural, washed, coarse grain, river sand from our local quarry. Works like a charm. The roof allows the sand to stay dry (and cool in the summer) and I wrap the run in the winter to keep the snow and rain and ice out.