Do you Clean out poop from the run?

[kismit]

where i live has xeric clay. mix in sand and plant matter and boom. adobe. until it rains. then its slimy adobe for extra super fun i don't want that again.
so we use pine pellets over dirt and i sweep poop off the roosts daily. top dress with fallen fallen leaves when available, then chopped straw or pine chips the rest of the year. just depends on availability. no puddles. no slime. i rake it out when the run's roof is closer than i'm happy about, but otherwise its pretty low maintenance.

 

[RedwoodCoastChick]

fluffy small animal shavings, (we get the Santa Ana winds. OMG what a nightmare that was!)

Oh, good heavens, I'm SO GLAD not to be dealing with Santa Ana winds anymore since we moved to the North Coast! I lived in SoCal from 1968 to 2018 and dreaded Santa Ana seasons. Amazing how they pick up and toss around things we never imagined they could, tore shingles off the roof, tossed patio furniture into swimming pools, blew trees over & caused blackouts. HUGE messes when they blew on "trash day", knocking over everyone's cans waiting for pickup & blowing trash all over the neighborhood. My deepest sympathies for you, dealing with those ferocious winds!

Not to mention the "red flag" fire danger -- wildfires came SO CLOSE to burning our family (my parents') home in Chatsworth in the early 70s, then my own LA Crescenta neighborhood in 2009 during the massive Station Fire. [Definitely motivated us to retire away from Santa Ana territory.] It's amazing how far beyond the fire lines it can blow dangerous embers. Hope you stay safe!

 

[RedwoodCoastChick]

It's bone-dry in the summers here (though cool with humid air being near the coast), but winters are so wet it's called "temperate rainforest" which is the season we just started in October. My first year with chickens -- wood chips over dirt worked fine during the dry season, and the girls love excavating dust bath "potholes" everywhere (even though they enjoy their "official" dust bath under the coop just fine).

Now that we're getting lots of rain regularly, I have their secure run (hardware cloth over/under/sides) covered with a tarp so it stays dry but I'm needing to add wood chip mulch much more often in the outer "day run" so the water drains through and the surface isn't muddy. Except that my little excavators are still digging their potholes and kicking dirt on top of the new chip layers, so it's kind of a contest to keep filling their holes, adding chips, repeat, repeat...

At least once I've filled their holes and dumped buckets of wood chips in the run, they merrily spread it around for me as they hunt, peck and scratch through the new heaps!

 

[SamIamNam786]

I live in a residential neighborhood. I have an enclosure like this attached to my original smaller coop. It has a dirt floor while I use sand in my small one. I only have 5 hens.

I live in a residential area as well, with five hens too! I changed my coop’s poop tray into a sand poop tray, which I scoop daily like kitty litter. The flooring of the coop is still hemp and pine shavings.
The run is a mixture of mulch and pelletized bedding and topsoil and some sand. I intended to create a dust bath area for them with the sand and topsoil, but since then everything has been mixed together. There is one area that’s thick and doing the magic composting thing on its own. I think it’s really cool. My entire run is covered so that’s been helping it stay dry and keep the stink at bay.