Due to the copious amounts of RAIN lately..

[Year of the Rooster]

The run is a stinking mess!!!

We even have construction sand in it and it just won't drain! I'm not sure if we need fresh new sand or what, but by now my chickens have probably turned into ducks. Any suggestions? Should we put new sand down? If we have to it will be a while because the ground is too soft to get a truck load of sand back to the run. I can't do anything too permanent either as I will be leaving for college this fall and I'm sure my parents don't want to take care of the birds for another couple years.

 

[patandchickens]

Have you looked at my 'fix a muddy run' page, link in .sig below. There are a bunch of things you can do *in addition to* just adding sand, that may well help more.

If it is still puddle-y with the sand, then you simply have too low a soil level in relation to the current water label. A bathtub with some sand chucked into it is just a sandy bathtub

You have to either lower the water level by trenching, or raise up the ground level by adding more sand/gravel/whatever.

If it is not puddle-y or muddy, just *stinky*, then your problem is likely to be having a lot of chickens in not very much space. Other than the obvious, there ain't much you can do about that until things dry out a bit, at which time you can try adding some stall powders of whatever sort and/or raking out the most egregiously-large deposits of poo. But basically if you have a lot of chickens in not much space and it is wet for a while, then yes, it will smell.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Year of the Rooster]

The main problem is that it's puddle-y and wet. That's why it stinks. I will try and see what works, thanks!