Do I need to replace wood chips in run?

[colospgs]

I've seen wildly varying threads on this, so...

I used to have a dirt floor on my covered run. Every week or so I would rake out the poop from the dry ground. But a couple of years ago we had so much rain it flowed into the run and it turned into a muddy, poopy, smelly, un-rake-able mess. These kinds of weather events here are rare, but they happen. So after that I dug out my run to about 4 inches and filled it with wood chips from a local landscape place. Plain, not dyed.

Great! I haven't raked anything out ever since. But can this go on forever? Do I need to need to completely remove the wood chips and replace every so often?

 

[StinkyAcres]

No, you don't need to take them out to replace them; just add more on top when the old wood chips disintegrate into the ground. And if you think the run is looking dirty, you can always rake the soiled wood chips and poop under and/or spread a thin layer of new chips on top.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I should say, though, that if your run is too small for the amount of chickens you might overload the wood chips with poop and in that case it will need to be completely cleaned out and replaced regularly.

 

[RoyalChick]

As @StinkyAcres said, as long as the run isn't too small for the chicken poop load you don't ever need to clean it out - just keep adding.
I get the odd flood and honestly it just accelerates everything rotting down.
I go in and dig myself a nice bucket of fertilizer/mulch to use when I am planting new shrubs, or when the roses need a feeding, but other than that I just leave it well alone.

 

[achiekitty]

I treat the wood chips in the run as my giant compost bin where I can dig out nice compost by scraping off the top wood chips. I also bring a screen to get fine compost. When you do this regularly, you’re gonna need to top-it-off. My main run is 4x8 with 2-3 chickens.