I agree with Leahs Mom, having once been a fan of sand, I'm over it in favor of good ol' fashioned wood shavings / chips. I found sand to be downright dreadful inside the coop, but outside it was okay, just that, as MrsAuberry mentioned, it was constantly being washed away by the rain. When it was washed away for me, it wasn't nearby for me to shovel back into the yard--it was long gone and I'd have to buy more sand to replace it. There's probably a nice, sandy spot somewhere deep in our woods where it all washed away to.
Anyway, the wood shavings stay put, and I just throw the dirty shavings from the coop out in a pile for the girls to spread out for me. The only problem I've found with shavings alone (without a wood chip foundation) is that they can become squishy after it's been raining a lot, particularly where the low spots in the ground were before I put them out there. It's still better than the stinky, slimy, slippery, ankle-deep muck, though!
That being said, I think you probably couldn't go wrong with either option, particularly if you have a barrier to prevent sand from washing away. The one big advantage to the sand is that the girls LOVED dust bathing in it, where as they don't seem to like to in the shavings.
) to scrape and loosen the sand where it gets packed down. This keeps your run full of soft sand the chickens love to dust bathe in and keeps clean up easier.
