Guidelines for building permanent sand-based foundation for coop & run.

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote:


The "saturation point" will be the same no matter what, if the soil below doesn't allow water in.

If it's built up higher than the surrounding area, water will drain out the sides too

Putting landscape cloth on top of stone will actually SLOW drainage

 

[joan1708]

I agree with bear foot farm. I would build it up. If part or all the the grave/sand is below ground level, the run could fill up with water like a swimming pool, especially if the surrounding dirt is clay. I like the plexi-glass idea. No chemical from treated wood to worry about, it won't rot, and you can see if it's holding water.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I assume you've taken into account burrowing critters like rats, mice, ground squirrels, etc? They love making their homes under sheds and coops.

 

[darncat]

good point Fred's Hens. Just love all you folks on BYC for you helped me alot with my coop and pen when I first started last March. Since I only have a small 1/2 acre lot and sloped one at that...I was very limited. I can not allow my gals to run freely in the yard so they are limited to the coop/pen area. I did opt to use a sand bed and love it ! Now I had the contractors dig out and lay cage wire and had the wire rolled up and it was attached to the treated lumber. Since I have clay/rock soil ...I had about 3" + put back down on the wire and then added at least 6" of construction grade sand. Now I do have a roof over the pen which was taken into consideration as to what I had done. But my RIR's are safe and sound and do not have to worry about any critters getting them.

 

[Montana-Hens]

Be interested in seeing how this works for you a year from now.

 

[PoultryPedia]

Putting landscape cloth on top of stone will actually SLOW drainage

My "run" is mostly enclosed, so I'm not really needing drainage OUT of the run--just PAST it so it doesn't flood into the sand floor.

The run is on a gradual slope & somewhat elevated above surrounding ground. I am hoping the gravel bed (that's underneath plus in a trench around the winter run/coop) will route surrounding water past the run underneath the landscape cloth.

I need the cloth to keep too much sand from sinking into the 1-inch size gravel.

Where there are wire openings on the walls of the run, I'm poking a lot of holes in the landscape cloth on the ground in that area, so hopefully any rain will still drain alright out of those areas.

If someone is doing a true outdoor run & is going to do a gravel bed, I'm thinking it may be best to use smaller "pea gravel" to reduce sand migration?

 

[amenfarm]

Specked hills- Peas gravel makes both problems worse, mixed sand/gravel, and allowing water to drain away,unstable under foot--plus it's more expensive.
Bear foot farm- I asked my dad what kind of gravel and sand to use and how much. His answer could have been different had I asked differently. I'll have him read these posts. An all sand base could be cheaper, I really need it to work the 1st time and not redo.
In front of my stalls (at the barn) is a hugh mess from all the heavy rains we have been having, and we can't re-contour the ground there until it dries up enough to take the equipment in and add about a ton of sand, at the same time we are adding several ditch for run off. What's funny is watching the donkey pull out his feet to walk! We justed added several bales of straw there for footing.
I just want water to run away or not make puddles. My pasture gets everyone else's water run-off and the property is just where the drainage runs into the creek, so most of the time it can take from 30 mins or more for rain to exit the center of the pasture during a rain. Even then the gound can be very spongee from the water. I want to build the outside run to migate these problems as much as possible.
I think that I need to put some kind of drains under the run? Or just build up the run base with the center higher ( cated to a side slope) and sloping off the water,maybe small ditches surrounding the run for run off? What do I need to do so I can use bricks (have about 2000 free ones if it will work) or timbers- something to corral the sand/gravel in one place, But still have water run-off?

 

[PoultryPedia]

I know with house sump pumps, they sometimes dig a deep hole in the yard that goes below the ground saturation point. They put a very broad diameter PVC pipe (I assume to keep dirt from filling in) in vertically & perforate the sides of it (I'm not sure how far down.) with some holes. Then they fill it with coarse gravel.

I wonder if something of a similar sort might help in a particularly crtitical place or two on your property?? Sort of create a drain hole that will port water down where it could be absorbed better??

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience with something like that to share?

I'm remembering now at one horse stable I know of that I think had underground perforated PVC pipes that drained to a lower ditch (which may have been a below-ground gravelled one). I think the point was to keep the horses from trampling in ditches in their runs, but I'm seeming to remember they did have some problems with some pipes getting crushed--not sure.

Anyone else know of something like this?

 

[perchie.girl]

Having had horses 45 years now and dealt with all sorts of issues with drainage. If you have areas that make a muddy mess a good solution is to build a french drain which is a trench about three or four feet deep sloped away from the building filled with gravel over the top of a perforated pipe which will allow the water to flow away from the area. a layer of landscape cloth that has perforations for water to go through goes on top then a layer of Decomposed granite (what is available here) covers that by about six inches. Even compacted water goes through DG like a sieve. As long as it doesn't have organic material mixed in with it.

With regard to the Chicken pen. Sand only becomes saturated IF there is no place for the water to go. Fill a bucket of sand with water too and its sloppy and swishy..... pour that bucket out and watch how quickly the sand drains and then dries. Especially if you stir it up a bit. Like Chickens love to do.

Id build a base with wood or cinder block and fill the area with sand. Cinder block is a good choice by the way because water goes right through it. The base around the sand will NOT keep the water in unless you line it with plastic. The water will flow out under or through....

deb

 

[PoultryPedia]

Deb--
Thanks very much for sharing your knowledge! The French drain system sounds very effective.

I'm not sure I understood the last part. Would you mind looking at my photos on pg 1 & letting me know if you foresee problems with how I'm doing things?

Bed:
The bed is dug down about 10 inches.

Gravel:
There is about 4 inches of 1-inch gravel in the bottom of the bed inside the bed and about 7 inches of gravel & large rocks supporting the walls. The bed extends at least 10 inches all the way around the exterior of the run & almost all of that exterior dug-down area is filled just with gravel, though we will put a thin layer of dirt on top of some of it.

"Landscape Fabric" (sort of):
I've now stitched together feed sacks similar to landscape fabric and attached them loosely wall-to-wall inside the run, to form a sort of flat pouch to put the sand in. I attached them to the bottom of the walls using trim boards. I poked some holes in the sacks throughout the floor, and extras where rain might come in, plus the stitching between the sacks holds them pretty loosely together.

Sand:
We'll be putting 8+ inches of sand inside the coop in a couple days.

Slope:
The run is on a fairly high place. The natural ground level is about 6 inches higher at the highest end of the run than at the lowest. We have compensated by building up the lower end with extra rocks & gravel. I'm hoping the gravel trench area on the upslope above the run will funnel any water from there down and the water will just flow through the gravel BELOW the landscape cloth.

Thanks for any helpful additional input.