Flooring for coop

[dracoe19]

At the moment I have a large coop that has a dirt floor. My problem is it is staying damp and muddy which is causing problems... What is the best flooring I can put? I was thinking fine gravel. I have heard you shouldn't put sand if it is damp and that it can breed bacteria but I'm not sure if that is true. I can't put cement and because of how the coop was made a wooden floor wouldn't be that great of an idea...What are your thoughts on substrait or other stuff?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Why is your coop wet? Where is the water coming from? The problem you need to address is the source of the moisture, but working with the coop floor may be part of that. I'll give a link to fixing a muddy run. I know yours is a coop and not a run, but you might get some ideas from the article that you can apply to your coop.

Pat’s Big Ol' Mud Page (fixing muddy runs):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-fix-a-muddy-run

I don't know where the moisture is coming from. I use berms and swales to help control rainwater runoff. It helps if your roof doesn't leak. Maybe you need shutters or something on vent openings or windows to keep rain from blowing in? Lots of good ventilation can help the coop dry out if it gets wet. Without knowing the source of the moisture it is hard to get too specific.

I built mine in the end of a shed so I could not locate it where it was really dry,. One thing I did with my coop was to cut a swale to divert rainwater to keep water out to start with. I also hauled in clay dirt to raise the floor elevation a few inches to get it above the level water might seep in. If yours is in a low spot, you might want to raise the ground elevation both inside and maybe around the outside to keep water away. Then you can put sand on top of the clay in the coop. Sand drains real well but the water needs ot have somewhere to drain to. If you put sand in a hole in clay, it can hold water, sort of like a swimming pool. But if the sand can drain, it makes a great flooring for a coop.

 

[dracoe19]

It is wet from 4 days of rain. The left side of the coop always stayed moist for days after rain. I have fixed the problem though! I dug down and leveled everything with very fine gravel inside and out and am getting rubber flooring tomorrow. Thank you for your link it was helpful .