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Do I need to put down something in the run?

masschix

Songster
11 Years
Apr 28, 2008
184
32
131
Central Massachusetts
Ok, I am very confused about what to put down in the run! I have been talking to a couple of people and got a lot of suggestions and none of them match. I was planning to raise the chickens on a dirt floor in the run, was told that it wasn't good.....what do I need to put down?
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I use pine shavings in my coop and I have just a dirt "floor"in my run. There is a corner of my run that I have sand in for them to take a dust bath. But other than that just plain old dirt. Oh when it gets really wet like when we get many days of rain it can get kind of muddy but the sandy corner always drains well and it doesn't seem to be much of a problem.
 
I had the same question when we were building our coop and run. Dirt is fine. Anything you put in there the chickens will just scratch out of the way until they get to the dirt.
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When all the grass is gone, our chickens will have dirt except for the few shavings we will put down. But I am not planning to put alot out there in the run.
 
My entire pen has a dirt floor. The coop part is just an enclosed end of the pen. I use grass clippings from the yard, raked up pine straw, or bales of hay to throw around the ground in it so they have something to walk on rather than dirt or mud. The grass clippings work very well. They love to dig in them and eat them, then they turn to mulch along with the chicken manure, so I just transfer it to the garden and start the process all over again.
 
So I have some soil with a lot of gravel and rock in it can I was going to maybe get ride of and was wondering if I can us it to build up the area I want to build my coop on in stead .

Thanks
The Newbie
 
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Mine have a dirt run with a small sandbox, we have found sand fleas when my kids had a large sandbox so I dont like having too much sand for the chickens.
 

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