chicken run material in a humid environment where the soil never dries out and average temp is 56f

[llcardinale]

Hello All,
Does anyone have experience with having a chicken run in a humid environment where the soil never dries out. My run flooded last night due to an irrigation problem and I have to replace all of the run material. These are my first chickens so I never realized just how much rain would end up in the run even though it is covered, and then something in my irrigation system is leaking into the run as well. I'm reading that coarse sand and hemp could work. Any other suggestions?

 

[Kmaria187]

Hello All,
Does anyone have experience with having a chicken run in a humid environment where the soil never dries out. My run flooded last night due to an irrigation problem and I have to replace all of the run material. These are my first chickens so I never realized just how much rain would end up in the run even though it is covered, and then something in my irrigation system is leaking into the run as well. I'm reading that coarse sand and hemp could work. Any other suggestions?

Not sure where you are located but up here in Washington we see plenty of rain so we use wood chips from Chip drop they deliver them to your house maybe they are in your area too. keeps them busy and keeps their feet dry and the mud at bay.

 

[perkolator]

x2 on getting arborist wood chips. A chunky and tall profile bedding will elevate above flood conditions and will generally not hold water if it does flood occasionally.

I use wood chips as a base for my setup, but prefer calling arborist directly vs dealing with ChipDrop. I also add lots of different organic materials -- wood shavings, leaves, straw bales, wood pellets, grass clippings, rakings, etc. It breaks down over time along with the poop contributions, harbors insects and worms and other critters the chickens want to forage through all day...and then later when it's broken down you can utilize the soil in the garden.

If you were a chicken penned up all day, would you want to be surrounded by a landscape of barren sand, or something similar to a forest floor/compost pile full of organic materials that you can forage through?

 

[Mother of Chaos]

For us deep litter people, a reminder for this time of year:

Homeowners are often responsible for keeping the storm sewers in front of their houses clear. Don't add leaves raked out of your gutters to your compost heap or to your chicken runs - they are generally contaminated by oil and gasoline (petrol) and other petroleum hydrocarbons from street run-off.

If you don't have much leaf-fall on your own property, you can often approach your neighbors when they put the giant heavy-duty brown paper bags full of leaves on their curbs for city recycling pick-up to ask if you can have the leaves instead. Tell them that you'll bring the bags back (this is a selling point, lol). And of course, be sure to ask if the leaves were exposed to any chemical sprays etc of pesticides.

They'll generally look at you like you're nuts, but once mine realize that oh, I'm that weirdo in the big brown house on the corner, they happily share.

 

[Altairsky]

I'd focus on fixing the irrigation problem as number one priority.

 

[llcardinale]

x2 on getting arborist wood chips. A chunky and tall profile bedding will elevate above flood conditions and will generally not hold water if it does flood occasionally.

I use wood chips as a base for my setup, but prefer calling arborist directly vs dealing with ChipDrop. I also add lots of different organic materials -- wood shavings, leaves, straw bales, wood pellets, grass clippings, rakings, etc. It breaks down over time along with the poop contributions, harbors insects and worms and other critters the chickens want to forage through all day...and then later when it's broken down you can utilize the soil in the garden.

If you were a chicken penned up all day, would you want to be surrounded by a landscape of barren sand, or something similar to a forest floor/compost pile full of organic materials that you can forage through?

Thank you for your response. My concern

Not sure where you are located but up here in Washington we see plenty of rain so we use wood chips from Chip drop they deliver them to your house maybe they are in your area too. keeps them busy and keeps their feet dry and the mud at bay.

I

I'd focus on fixing the irrigation problem as number one priority.

Thank you for your response. We're putting in a French drain. Turns out that the water table in our new house is high. Seems that all of the covered runs I see are otherwise wide open, in which case they are open to getting wet on all sides. I have eight four month old pullets. My understanding is that until they're about five or six months old they're more susceptible to developing diseases that tend to be highly exacerbated by moisture. So I'm unsure about whether I should cover the run in a tarp that allows for 2.5 feet open on the bottom, thus reducing rain exposure, or simply put a roof on it. Right now I have it covered in several tarps because they all have holes from the hardware cloth.