Hey all, So my chicks are 3.5 weeks old and I've been using sand in their brooder (barricaded area in the coop). I have it maybe half an inch to an inch thick. Is this thick enough? The sand has small little pebbles in it. It's not a super fine sand. The bottom is well covered as well. Also, I have found that i don't rally need to scoop poop much. Is that like totally wrong of me?! I feel that the poop just gets pushed around into the sand. I top up the sand every week or so. Once the chicks have taken over te coop, I plan on just scooping out the large poop collections under the roosts but not doing much else. I'll top up sand regularily and put fresh sand in likely every spring and or fall. Does anyone else find that it's a lot less cleaning when you use sand? However, this is my first time having chicks so maybe I'm just all wrong!!?
Sand is less work cleaning but letting it get mixed in may not be the best idea. I have 4" in my coop for the softness because some of my roosts are pretty high and the heaviest of mine likes the highest roost. 1" is fine for the depth.
I use about 4" of sand in my run, and don't clean it (run is too big, and I don't have enough time!) But once a year, I go in and shovel out the top layer, and anything that is no longer dry and sandy, and replace it with new sand. I buy it by the yard at a quarry, so two yards of sand only costs thirty bucks or so.
I have sand in my pea fowl's run and have not had to scoop anything in 3 years. They move it around themselves.
