I H-A-T-E mud more than anyone!!!

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As soon as it started raining here in Oregon this year, I picked up some bags/bails of pine shavings & scatered over the chicken yard. The chickens keep busy fluffing & churning it into the mud, I add more every so often. No puddles that way & they aren't so muddy, the yard is fresher smelling & it will all be raked up in the Spring for garden compost.

A while back, I read on the BYC that people with flooded yard areas put wood pallets down to keep their chickens out of the mud & puddles, the pictures show the chickens happily standing on the pallets. Chickens sure can be tough sometimes!

Hope this can be helpful to you with this problem, at least for now it would make it less messy. My chickens come from the fluffy mud/pine shavings, go to the coop with pine shaving floor & into the nests with pine shavings; my eggs are all clean & not muddy, it's like magic. Sand sounds good to me when the snow & rains slow down in the Spring here.
 
I hear you, have lived it before.
Depending on how much area you have to cover DG (decomposed Granite) will really help and often does a better job than sand. If you just need to keep a smaller chicken run mud free you may want to try "Stall Dry" or "Dry stall". Two different products and two different consistencies, plus one even has Diatomaceus Earth in it, which will keep the parasite population down around your chickens. I use both around my chickens and my horse.
Good luck.
 
Not trying to brag or play "one up"!!!!!!!!!

However-----------

SE La. Ascension Parish, we have recieved 3 months of rainfall in less than 2 weeks. 8" of rain in 24 hours last Monday, 2" Dec 8, 3"+ Friday/ Saturday, 3" yesterday, 2"+ forecast for today. Raining right now, roads closed, we are beyond the worry about "mud" stage, we are at the "How High"s The Water Momma" stage. I am in a flood zone, watching river levels.

Me I am gonna build an ARK (like a big boat), maf2008 if'n you want to built an "ARC" (part of a circle) you go ahead but it ain't gonna float.

pet peeve------- NEW ORLEANS is not the only place in La. Watching The Weather Channel, all you hear about flooding pertains to New Orleans.
 
Another Texan feeling your pain. We're knee deep in mud and have been for months. Everything we own is mud encrusted, including the livestock. Blech. I'm sick of hauling square bales around but we can get the tractor out to move round bales. The only ones happy are the geese. My stock pond is overflowing and they love drilling in the mud.
 
Mud now and no rain when I plant the garden. Yep sounds about right. Mine are in the mud or on top of the shelter in the run.
 
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Thanks twentynine for the spellcheck! That was driving me crazy too!

I regards to the Weather channel...feel your pain...try living in that state west of West Virgina/Virgina ...that would be Kentucky...Guess they think we don't have electric yet and can't see their reports anyway!

Lived for 10yrs in the Gumbo of Houston. Traded it for the boot sucking mud of the Bluegrass(which is dormant in winter) Would rather have it frozen thank you! Oh and stop complaining...only 2 years ago you all were so dry that hay was $11 a square bale. Thought about being a carpet bagger with a load of GOOD hay that sold up here for $2/bale....
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we are getting the same thing in NW North Carolina. Mine are chicks and still in the house, but I need to get the coop finished and everytime I have time to work on it, its raining. I am trying to rake up leaves and have to quit because the ground is so soft the leaf rake is tearing up the lawn.
 
Ugh, I hate the winter mud messes, too! My run becomes one big muck puddle when the California rains set in. These were already mentioned briefly, but I've found two temporary solutions that seem to work pretty decently:

1. I rake the old shavings out of my henhouse (I keep deep shavings in my henhouse) and into the run and put an even layer of them over the mud. If I can get a few inches over the mud, it controls it decently for a while, depending on just how much it's raining and just how much shavings I put down. I've been pleased with this, as it helps clean out the henhouse and control the mud, though! And of course I put a new bag of shavings in the henhouse at that point to start the whole cycle again.

2. I rake the leaves, pine needles, and so on in my yard, as much as possible (my run is 25' x 15', so it takes a good four to six wheelbarrows full for me!) and coat the ground in the run with them as deep as I can. This also helps with the smell of the mud, and the chickens absolutely love scratching around in the leaves!

I hope those tips help someone! When the rains are really intense I don't think there's a whole lot one can do to contain the mud completely, but these two things do help.
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Thats what I was going to say. I cooped my chickens last week and it started raining. But I had been raking the cypress needles and oak leaves, so they aren't so very messy and it gives me a place to walk. Even if I would raise the level of the ground, they still like to scratch and they will cover the sand with droppings and eventually enough droppings and rain =s mud. And you know they will scratch so that means messy chickens. It is starting to look messier than I would like and when it dries, some more leaves and needles will be in order.
 

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