Coop litter as run bedding?

[aart]

Thank you! I discovered yesterday that my city sells wood chips very cheaply just around the corner from my office. So...I drove the truck today in order to get a load over lunch!

Great! What do they look like?

Agreed! I'm a first time chicken mama and we just built a new house so the permanent coop and run have to wait until spring. The new run will be mostly covered, so in the meantime I'm doing what I can to keep them comfortable. The existing run has a couple of tarps spread over half of it, but I do realize that is a poor substitute.
I am open to any friendly suggestions and advice!

Pics of your coop and run would help here, and knowing how many birds you have.

If you can, put down about 1' of wood chips thru the whole pen. It will not only help with your run drainage but breed actual bugs and worms your chickens would love to eat.

Ehhhh....Might want to hold off piling 12" of chips into a run all at once, especially if the chips are newly chipped and full of green leaves. Hopefully you have somewhere in your yard to store that load of chips and just put in a few inches into the run at a time.
If your run is puddling with water best to dig some drainage in and/or around the run to make sure the water can drain out.

As far as putting all the poop and bedding from coop into run, that can work if the run bedding mix is right....or it can become a nasty mess.

 

[SlatyGapSis]

Great! What do they look like?


Pics of your coop and run would help here, and knowing how many birds you have.



Ehhhh....Might want to hold off piling 12" of chips into a run all at once, especially if the chips are newly chipped and full of green leaves. Hopefully you have somewhere in your yard to store that load of chips and just put in a few inches into the run at a time.
If your run is puddling with water best to dig some drainage in and/or around the run to make sure the water can drain out.

As far as putting all the poop and bedding from coop into run, that can work if the run bedding mix is right....or it can become a nasty mess.

I've attached a picture of the mulch I was able to get into the run last night before the downpour. They love it! I just tossed it in and they did most of the spreading for me. I hope to get more to the rest of the run this evening. I think I have just enough to put a 1-3" deep layer throughout.

I have 10 birds - 9 hens and a cockerel. The coop you can see in the second picture is small but seems to be working fine especially now that it's getting cold. I was only planning on getting 6-8 birds and built the temporary coop accordingly, but...you know...chicken math. The majority of the run is covered with a sun shade and tarps, the rest with bird netting.

I don't have any standing water or puddles, but our soil is mostly clay and rock so it gets slick and annoying.

Now that I have the wood chips, I don't think I will incorporate the coop bedding...to avoid compounding the poop issue.

I just want to reiterate, that this whole set up is temporary until we get the permanent coop built in the spring (8'-0" x 12'-0") and we acquire an LGD. At that time, we hope to free range during the day with a large covered run attached for protection from weather and aerial predators. Until then, I'm trying to keep everyone safe, healthy and comfortable as best I know how...with BYC's help!