And a couple of winter photos. [/quote] That's awesome! Maybe I'll try that with our abundance of leaves this fall!!Quote: [quote url="[URL]https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/5373331/[/URL]"] Something that might be helpful for the future... To keep my runs from getting flooded or packed down into hard earth, I do a deep litter in the outdoor pen. When I first put up the pen/run, it was grass. As they wore that down over time, I began to fill it with wood chips, the wood shavings that I cleaned out of the indoor coop, and whatever else was available. The goal is to keep the ground underneith "alive"...to make a deep bedding that they can hopefully scratch through even in winter and still find worms under there. I keep dumping more and more into that run and it is awesomely alive instead of impacted and muddy and dead. The deep mulch keeps water from pooling too. I had the people who cut down some trees leave the wood chips and then let them "cure" in a pile for about 6 months before I used them. When you see worms in the pile it's good to go. Many places that cut down trees are willing to dump chips on your property FREE when they're cutting something down in your area. Call a few and ask. They don't like to have to haul them back to their place and dispose of them. It's free mulch. But...if I didn't have the wood chips I could have used raked up leaves, grass, etc. I also put ALL INDOOR WOOD CHIPS out there when I clean them out. I just haul it in there and dump it in a pile. They love to dig through it and distribute it when you first put it out. Here are some photos inside the run area when I had just dumped in some chips. They go to town and dig through for whatever is alive in there. You can see in the next photo what the run looks like from the side. They go out of here to free range most of the time. However, it gives me a pen to close them in when necessary. Notice the deep mulch/litter. Lots of worms and bugs under it that they dig through when they're stuck in the pen.