Hi there. We're somewhat new to chickens and have had our current flock for 7 months. We have a covered run and put down sand after they killed all the grass and turned it into a muddy mucky slippery mess. What I didn't know until now was that sand sticks when wet! We are in the wettest climate around and need some advice on what to do. I'm pretty sure the sand can't stay but I have no idea what to put down instead. We have gravel underneath the sand from what I think used to be a gravel driveway. It rains almost everyday here and the run is always saturated from the ground up. What can we do? I'm worried about attracting attention from the smell by our neighbors. I was thinking maybe mulch but can't really get that right now in the winter. Thank you all for your help. It's greatly appreciated!
You could build some sort of trench or french drain around the outside to direct the run off from heavy rains away from the run. RichnSteph edited because I totally didn't read the part where you said your run was covered.
Another idea is if at all possible take your grass clippings and spread that out in the run to help keep them off the muddy ground and absorb some of the water
You said your run is covered so If the water is runoff from all of the rain you may consider sandbagging the outline of your run if the space and resources allow it. That way you can also detour the direction the water runs. It may be tedious but well worth it. We line our run floor with straw. The grass underneath is slowly dying but the straw allows for them to scratch and also makes it easy to clean up the poop.
Our propety slopes a bit ... well, we do live in the mountains of WNC ... so I dug drainage ditches to divert the water coming from the uphill side away from the run. Essentially, we've got a v-shaped trench with the point of the v about six feet from the run and the legs of the v dug out past the corners of the run. I also dug small trenches out from the sides of the run. If one were to take an aerial shot of the run, it would likely look like a turkey carving board. None of the trenches are very deep - maybe 4 inches deep and 8 inches wide. They really do the trick with diverting the water. We also added some PDZ to the sand and do a nice rake up a couple of times a week. How flat is your space where the run is?
