Chickens kicking their litter out of the run

[mjd]

Hi all, I'm wondering if anyone else has had the same issue and how you dealt with it.

We have a nice-sized run for our 3 girls, and we use DLM with pine shavings. The girls love to dig through the litter - but in doing so they are kicking the litter out through the hardware cloth so there's constantly a pile all around the structure.

We've been considering lining the inside of the run with some Plexiglas around the bottom, which would cut down on the escaping litter quite a bit. Does anyone see any problems with doing that?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this!

 

[Pharm Girl]

Plexi would work fine for that. I was cheap and used plastic carpet runner/protector stuff around the bottom, but plexi would hold up forever!

 

[fireguy56]

Hi, Anything will work...i.e. 1" x 6" fence boards, plexiglas, plywood, etc... The main idea here is to keep the shavings in. Very simple. good luck.
Erik

 

[mjd]

Thanks for the reply! How high up did you put yours? 8 inches? 12?

 

[Pharm Girl]

Quote:
I had rain issues as well, so I used the whole runner.

 

[mjd]

We're in the PNW too! Seattle, just a little North of downtown. We have part of our run roofed, and part without a roof, and on the drizzly days the chickens actually prefer being out in the drizzle! Weird.

Thanks a lot for the photo. I love seeing what other people have created. We've been lurking here a long time, and my husband used this site extensively when designing our coop.

Looks like it's time for a trip to Home Depot for some Plexi.....

 

[zoelovesmom]

I had the same problem, and all the litter outside the coop got rained on and nasty. I added metal mesh screening around the bottom, then I switched to sand instead of litter in the run. Still not crazy about the solution, as the sand has to be scooped like a cat box every day.