I am worried about my flock.

[chris4kdz]

I live in nc we have been getting a lot of rain latley. I have a fenced in area around 150 by 75. It's pretty big with pleanty of grass. I have 10 americanas. My ? I have a lot of standing water and some is stinking like old mop water. I have tried Clorox and de at different timed of course. Do I need to maybe build them a new run off the ground until the rain stops. They are saying it will be like this through Aug. I'm just concerned for them. Never been in this before. The area is keep clean.

 

[Naunnie]

Sand it the ticket! I keep it about 6" deep and shovel in more for any low spots pop up.

 

[chickenforlife]

Sand will work but don't use play sand, use sand that is course otherwise it wont drain and will pool in places. and can become as hard as concrete.

 

[Naunnie]

I use play sand....bagged from Lowes and have not had any problems other than the expense. I do rake everyday with a modified "apple picker" stall rake. I got the idea from here: http://ourcountrychronicles.blogspot.com/2012/02/coop-management.html Works great and I thank Kelly for sharing it!. When I built the duck run, I figured I would need to keeping replacing the sand due to washing away from dumping their pool....so I had a load of "river sand" delivered from a local builders supply store. I honestly can't tell much difference from the bagged play sand. Check around for any rock quarry's or sand/gravel suppliers in your area. Most will offer pick-up or delivery.

 

[chris4kdz]

Thanks for the info. Great advice..

 

[WoodlandWoman]

If you can fill in the low spots over time, that should help the water in the run drain away. It's just hard to do that if it's pouring rain at the moment. I have sand on the surface of the bare area in my run next to the coop and like it.

When I first moved here, I had some troubles with the yard. The first spring when I had areas that were flooded, I dug a tiny channel, only the width of my finger, to let pooled up water drain away to a lower area. I live on the side of a hill, so if I went far enough, that worked. If there's an area close to the run that's lower, you might be able to do something like that, just by jamming a flat shovel into the ground and wiggling it back and forth, in a line to the lower area, where it might drain away.

If your run is just in a low area with higher ground all around it, then you're stuck building it up, so it's higher. I ended up regrading a few spots, too. Giving the chickens pallets to stand on can make them more comfortable temporarily, until you can get something worked out.

 

[chickenforlife]

what i did when I first moved into my house was I dug a trench along the side of my house that had the worst flooding and buried a 51 foot section of weeping tile I got at home depot for around 60 bucks and took one end hooked it up to the gutter's down spout and the other end to the back edge of the property and I have not had any problems since. when doing this the only thing you need to make sure is you dig a channel 1 foot down that way you have enough to cover and if your like me have work done with machinery that will allow the weeping tile not to break bend or crimp under ground. try that it works