dirt run maintinance

[RocketDad]

Caps lock off, please.

 

[Megs]

Quote:
second that motion! hard to read all caps

 

[Eggs-Actly]

I just turn the dirt over in my run once or twice a month with a pitchfork in the morning before I let the girls out. They just love to dig and scratch around in it. I used to do wood chips but that got a little expensive for us. So I started asking the Asplundh guys that trim the trees around utility lines in our area to dump a load of chips in my driveway but then I got tired of spending an afternoon with a wheelbarrow and shovel. So finally I decided to just turn the dirt over one day while I was working in the garden. It's so much easier for me. I put some weeds in the run after doing it for added amusement - I have lots of weeds here in FLA (nothing stops growing here and it seems like it doesn't matter how many weeds I pull; they just keep coming back). However, I also realize that my 9 girls are much less than some of the flocks I see on here.

 

[chookchick]

Okay, here's a pic of Cleopatra in the "wood chip" plus run

This was taken about a month ago and I've been dumping dried leaves in there for them. Also weeds, a little hay, etc...I guess you really can't see the wood chip much

. Anyway, there is a good thick layer, I get it for free.

 

[SC_Hugh]

Quote:
I second that; Dried leaves help absorb some of the moisture and the chickens love to spread it around and they are FREE. I throw some scratch and layer pellets into the leaves and they stay busy for a LONG TIME

After they shread the leaves all up, I rake it out and throw onto the compost pile and then add a new bunch of leaves in there. One month ago, I raked up all my leaves and bagged them up for later. A friend of mine uses leaves on his coop floor too.

--Hugh

 

[Omran]

The only thing I do to my run is till it with the garden tiller, that's ofcourse when temp are nice and no cold weather around