How to "fix" a swamp??

[Beer can]

I can get a trailer full of sawdust for $3. Pine shavings are $5 a bale. ;-)

Better take advantage of that quick like. Sawdust was cheap here, prefferd for dairy farmer's and we have lots of them. Not anymore they either chop grass for bedding or big farms now use sand... sawdust is non-existent , all sawmills make wood pellets now for home heating, big money. Used to be pretty much given away, now none.
We use sawdust from cutting our own firewood, and dead dry tree leaves for our chicken deep litter bedding.

 

[adrikeen]

I have had good luck with using hay (not straw). I'll buy 1-2 bales at a time and put the hay down. It breaks down over time to be composted elsewhere, chickens can munch it, chickens can't kick it out the way they do pine shavings/wood chips, and it smells like grass when wet.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

Our run is on top of the leach field, so was always wet. If you get a truckload of natural, washed river sand, you won’t have to muck it out later and it will keep your run from getting swampy in the future. We have sand in both the coop and the run and the only “complaint” I have is that I have to sweep the basement floor every couple of days because I can’t be bothered to use a boot brush before I go inside! The birds love it because they can dustbathe to their hearts’ content and I love it because I can keep it clean with nothing more than a five gallon bucket and a kitty litter scoop. I mix in a couple of bags of PDZ Stall Refresh every six months or so to keep the smell down and don’t have to replace the sand at all. As an added bonus, it’s $90 for a dump truck load, delivered!

 

[aart]

Our run is on top of the leach field, so was always wet.

A wet leach field is not a healthy/functional leach field....
....especially if it's leaching household sewage(people poop).

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I wish I could get a dump truck of sand for $90 here! It costs $30/yard here plus delivery, so a dump truck full would easily be $450! If it was that cheap, I would consider using sand too!

 

[Farmgirl1878]

A wet leach field is not a healthy/functional leach field....
....especially if it's leaching household sewage(people poop).

Yep, we figured that out... after we built the coop! It’s actually built on the high spot, so doesn’t get wet except outside the run after a big rain. The contractor is “supposed” to come fix it, but hasn’t been back in a month. He was supposed to build a partial mound system, but there’s no mound... sigh...

 

[getaclue]

ChocolateMouse, that's about what it costs here too. It's not cheap.

 

[Farmgirl1878]

ChocolateMouse, that's about what it costs here too. It's not cheap.

Wow! And obtw, I was wrong, the sand cost $114 for delivery of 13 tons. The $90 was the delivery fee. The sand cost less than $25 total.

ChocolateMouse, I’m in Pike County, 90 minutes south of Columbus. Can’t believe it’s that much cheaper here...

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I have no idea where you're getting it from then. I can't find those prices anywhere.

 

[JurassicChicken]

I had a similar problem early in the summer...torrential rains one afternoon after another turned our chicken run into a muddy stinky mess. I had been using wood shavings, but they soaked up water and just added to the mess. The flies were terrible and my chickens were not happy. After getting some very good advice here, I came up with a solution that fit my situation. Because our property sits on a ridge top it is not possible to get a truck between our house and our outdoor shed to the area where the run is located. In the front of our house, I could only get a truck half way around before running into my wife's orchid greenhouse, and our front yard is not very wide; slopes away to mountain side. So I would have to use material that I can carry in a large garden cart.

I shoveled out most of the soggy wood shavings and relocated them to a mulch pile in our woods. Instead of tree service wood chips, I used bagged natural pine bark from Home Depot and bales of pine straw. After layering these materials to a depth of about 10" to 12" I started adding grass clippings. The stink disappeared in a couple of days along with the mud. The chickens seemed to prefer the bark / pine needle ground cover, and in subsequent rains the water filtered through the bark and pine straw into the ground. No more mud, no more stink. Since I made this change I have added a few bales of pine straw as it wears away. The chickens love scratching through the mix, but last week I decided to turn the bark / pine straw over with a shovel; at the bottom of my layers was nice sweet smelling mulch, along with bugs and worms the chickens feasted on. The chickens like to "landscape" their run by creating hills and valleys in the bark / pine needle material.

About a month or so ago I found a used folding canopy tent at a flea market, the kind of fabric canopy that opens as you separate the legs of the tent frame. Now my girls have a canopied area in which they take their dust baths and hang out on hot sunny days or rainy days. I dump grass clippings at various places around the run so the chickens help spread them around. My wife and I keep a couple of folding chairs in the run, and we frequently take time to sit under the canopy and enjoy interacting with the birds and watching their antics. Best of all, no mud and no stink!