Keeping the pen clean?

[Knighstar679]

I Started out with pellet bedding for mine then added flaked pine on top and let the chickens turn it over as they root around in it. I am letting mine compost down to dirt because I am cheep and don't want to buy fill dirt and bedding to fill in the un even spot that dips down and holds water. Its not going to bad one year into it. I take my dirty bedding from my coops and add to it put barn lime on top of it then add flaked on top of that to keep flies away.

If I didn't do it this way it would just end up just a giant swamp or lake which the ducks would love but it would ruin my duck houses and leave no place to feed them or anything like that.

 

[NatJ]

What is pelletized bedding and where can you get this ?

Here is one example:
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/tractor-supply-pine-pellet-stall-bedding-40-lb

It is sawdust, pressed together into pellets, and sold as bedding for horses and various pets. When it gets wet, the pellets fall apart into sawdust again. The sawdust can absorb large amounts of water.

I hose mine out daily

Cleaning with a hose is adding even more water.
If you want it dry, just scoop out the wet bedding and add more dry bedding (and maybe even more dry bedding.)

 

[Aunt Angus]

Here is one example:
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/tractor-supply-pine-pellet-stall-bedding-40-lb

It is sawdust, pressed together into pellets, and sold as bedding for horses and various pets. When it gets wet, the pellets fall apart into sawdust again. The sawdust can absorb large amounts of water.


Cleaning with a hose is adding even more water.
If you want it dry, just scoop out the wet bedding and add more dry bedding (and maybe even more dry bedding.)

^^^This! I use it for my goats, too. So much easier and better smelling than hay.

I'll add that the pine shavings I use in the coop gets swept out into the run and mixed with the sawdust and the dirt. I do that weekly. I also mix up all the stuff that's composted in the run with a garden claw thing every week, too, to keep it mixed and to intersperse the wet with the dry. Not a perfect system, but it's better than when I just used pine shavings.

I love the horse stall mat idea. I am thinking of making a platform for the duckie buckets with some kind of foot-friendly grate over it to keep the water going somewhere less detrimental to my chicken run. It just kind of makes wet areas around the buckets. It gets stinky sometimes.

 

[Aunt Angus]

What do you do about all the flies....

I don't really have an issue with flies in the birds' run. For the goat house, I use fly traps. Those work well.