Digging out a run

[Sefirothe]

If it’s inside your run, unless you have a really wide entrance door…a rented machine isn’t going to fit. And unless you have a really wide and tall run, a machine isn’t going to have room to maneuver if you take down part of the wall to get it in.

I don’t see a way to do this easily other than the tiller idea @azurbanclucker had.

 

[LaurenRitz]

If you do a two foot deep trench around the perimeter and put the wire down vertically you'll save yourself a lot of work and probably have the same effect. Go out six inches to a foot and you'll have a barrier to vertical diggers as well. You don't need to dig out the whole thing.

 

[perkolator]

Sounds like one heck of a project. I had to dig out my run for adding HC as well, but I definitely didn't task myself to go down 2ft, that sounds excessive. I did it with lots of elbow grease, rototiller, shovel and wheelbarrow.

I went about 6" deep to bury my 1/2" HC, put the dirt back and then raised the bedding depth by going up instead of down; MUCH easier task! I have cinder block foundation and also added cedar fence slats to bottom walls to keep bedding from pushing against HC walls, so I've got like 12" of solid wall above the HC.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Did I calculate that wrong? It's 24'x9' and 2' deep. I haven't had any sleep so maybe that's wrong. I used this site:

https://www.thecalculatorsite.com/conversions/common/square-feet-cubic-yards.php

Since you are attempting to block burrowing squirrels which come up within the run walls (I think some posters have missed this), would an alternative to digging out be to place 1'x1' 1-inch thick concrete pavers on the surface with tight junctions? (not mortared together, just nearly touching, to allow for drainage.) It sounds brutal on the back and hands, but definitely simpler and cheaper, as these blocks typically run about a buck less than $2 apiece.

You would then want to add solid sides (fascia board, etc.) at the bottom of the run walls, because I would want to have at least 18" (picked that out of the air, but I've seen chickens dig) of run litter between the blocks and the chickens' feet.

No doubt there'd be some other things to work through. Just still struggling with the thought of all that dirt, then laying down the HWC, then replacing the dirt. And although you're in desert conditions, HWC does rust and rot over time. It would be pretty awful to go through all that just to have a small spot rust out, only for the squirrels to find it and come on through.

Edit: whoa, I thought for sure that I paid less than that this spring.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

How deep is your caliche layer? Deeper than you need to dig? Once you hit it, you might as well start blasting, it's like concrete.

Fellow desert dweller asking the real questions! I've been digging around to find the caliche. It's not consistent. We picked an area for the run where the caliche seems to be deeper than two feet but I guess we won't know for sure until we start clearing it out.

If you can get away with not hitting that, just buy/rent a tiller and break it up in layers. Till down, scoop out, till own, scoop out, until you get the depth you need. Then line it and backfill. You can even do it in sections if you need to.

That was my plan. Home Depot won't rent a tiller for ground that hasn't been tilled in years and their smallest excavator won't fit through our gate. Tillers designed for breaking new ground aren't cheap. I'll ask around to see if maybe someone has one I could borrow, you never know.

This property used to have a lawn and fruit trees, decades ago. The ground doesn't seem that hard if I can dig it out with a regular ol' shovel. I dig in it regularly to get dirt to fill in spots in the current run and pens. Once I dug down 2' to start a garden although that was after a rain when the ground had soaked for a bit.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Do you use horizontal aprons outside the run edges?

On the existing run and pens, yes. This will be a new run.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Its just as easy to raise the soil level as to dig deep.Same difference and it'll stay dry.Your hardware cloth might last longer. 16 gauge 1/2" galvanized steel will last the longest.Higher gauge or 1/4" is weaker

Ooo, interesting... build a 2' frame of cinder block and fill it in? Wouldn't we still have to buy and fill in 16 cubic yards of dirt? How well would it drain? We have some pretty big storms here that dump a lot of water in a short time. Wouldn't it become a lake of mud?

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Okay I finally got some sleep. Thanks for all these replies, I'm thinking about all of them.

The squirrels dig borrows everywhere, even under the house foundation. We didn't find out until after we'd moved in.

Here's the problem:

Here's how we're trying to solve it:

We'd dig a 2' deep "bathtub" under the run and line it with hardware cloth. The run would then be encased on all six sides by 1/2" hardware cloth.

Note: the run hasn't been built yet. Digging would be the first step. This is a problem we have with our current run and pens.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

If it’s inside your run, unless you have a really wide entrance door…a rented machine isn’t going to fit. And unless you have a really wide and tall run, a machine isn’t going to have room to maneuver if you take down part of the wall to get it in.

I don’t see a way to do this easily other than the tiller idea @azurbanclucker had.

This is going to be a new run, it hasn't been built yet. Digging would be the first step.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

If you do a two foot deep trench around the perimeter and put the wire down vertically you'll save yourself a lot of work and probably have the same effect. Go out six inches to a foot and you'll have a barrier to vertical diggers as well. You don't need to dig out the whole thing.

Unfortunately the burrows go deeper than two feet. The house was empty for a while and the squirrel population exploded. This must have been a safe haven for miles around. There are burrows all over the property, even under the house foundation.