I get the poop out of the coop, but the run?? what do I do for that? Its pretty big compared to the size of my flock. Do I need to clean the run? Theres nothing in it except dirt, and tree litter. Now theres not as much grass, but theres still some. This is half of the run about 2 months ago, and thats the old coop.
I'm not an expert, but my feeling is that as long as the run area is dry and not smelly - you should probably be fine. You may want to add some pine shavings and DE to help with that but if they are outside most of the time (and personally I'm amazed that you have any green vegetation in there!) the poop gets added to the soil and if there aren't that many, it shouldn't overrun the space. Mine free range the back yard but it's not huge. Because the hens wander around and scratch so much, I never notice any issues except when they poop on our deck...sigh.
with a dirt run all u need to do is sprinkle a few cup fulls of DE. cover it over with wood shavings no cedar ..and your set for the winter months at least that what I have been doing, hope this helps. ( downsized to 9 cochins hens and 2 roos.12 silkies :jumpy
For me, it is not a matter of cleaning the run, but making use of all that lovely chook poo fertilizer. Putting something down on the ground helps me to gather it up. Others do lots of different things and if you have a non smelly, non muddy run then i wouldn't say you had to do anything. I have a smaller run pre chicken than you so it doesn't grow enough greens for them. I put every weed I pull out from my very large garden in there and, what they don't nibble on, gets mixed in with poop and is breaking down into a glorious brown fertilizer.
