Chicken run

[chickendriver]

I am a first time chicken owner and I have my design for my coop and run close to done, and building will commence as soon as I get a wall up around the yard.

My question is this. I have a run that will be basically 56 ft2. I live in the desert where there is a bunch of very fine sand, so I plan on having sand in the run but I want to plant grass and have about half of the run be grass. Is there any reason I should not do that? I will be able to mow that area, btw.

I just want to give the gals (3 of them for now) enough goodness while they're cooped up in the run.

Thanks

 

[Judy]

It's fine to plant grass in the run, but you probabl won't need to mow it. They will eat it all.

 

[renardsubtil]

+2 they will uproot and eat almost anything green, especially grass.

If you want the chickens to have grass in their run without replanting it for them constantly...you might want to search for designs whereby the grass is grown in a shallow planter box with a netting over it to help protect it from being dug up. There's a couple good examples of it I've seen on here.

 

[chickendriver]

Hmm, will they eat it so much that it won't be able to grow well, making it a hassle, do you think? Sorry for my ignorance as I am completely new to this

 

[chickendriver]

Ok, just saw that second response, so disregard. I will have two sides to the run, one will be blocked off so that the grass can recover while they tear up the other side.

I will look into the netting also. I suppose worst case, they will have a lot of sand/soil in the run.