Please tell how the sand is supposed to work? I always wondered about it, because if you look at the soles of chicken feet, they DO look sensitive, like monkey paws or even like OUR feet, and I wondered if sand wouldn't be a lot more gentle? It also looks nice.
But my chickens freerange among our discarded hotwheels, crayons& children's junkbits in a tree-chip backyard which is definitely not gentle, and they dig to china on most days like there's no tomorrow. Some of their digging goes about a foot deep. So for all their delicate looks, those feet are seriously hard working diggers.
What we use is pine shavings, but the outdoor chips in the run have composted into dirt which I occasionally turn over with a shovel, but there's chocolate mint and spearmint and a little bit of grass growing out there, too, so our run just sort of smells minty. I had a master gardner friend over to visit yesterday, it was muggy, and she swore there was no bad smell. I compost every poop I see. I am only home 3 days a week, I have 3 gradeschool kids so I only spend maybe a total of 4 hours a week searching for chicken poop for my compost heap, its become a hobby like my knitting..........
So I guess I'm lucky I only have 4 chickens, their poop in the pine chips (and covered in my compost heap which looks like mud) doesn't have a bad smell. I'd still love to know more about using sand.
The smell of the run is getting a bit strong. We clean the run and coops 2-3 times a week. Is there anything I can mix in the sand to help with the smell? It's not so much an ammonia smell, it's just the having chickens smell, LOL. I wouldn't worry about it so much if I didn't have neighbors in close proximity. 
