How do you maintain your run and foraging area?

[happymom99]

My 7 girls just have their coop in the middle of a fenced off area that is about 400-500 sq feet. Soon they will also have a 70 sq foot or so enclosed run attached to their coop. Then each morning I will let them out into the larger fenced off foraging area. I know that soon the run and foraging area will be pecked away of all green matter and just be dirt and chicken poop. Do you clean the chicken poop out of these areas with a rake or do you just leave and let it go back into the earth? Does the poop pile up in areas or start to stink? Can it be hazardous to have them foraging around the area where they also poop so much?

Thank you,
CJ

 

[BlueBetween]

can you section the area off into a 3 or 4 sections and rotate which one they go into? That way the others will have time to recover while they are in another spot?

 

[Spires6]

Our run was just dirt and the poop didn't seem to pile up. I think it decomposes more quickly outside on the ground. I am planning on building a new, more secure, larger runand am considering deviding it so I can allow the ground to recover and grow new vegetation. Good luck on your new coop.

 

[happymom99]

Thank you!