Landscape cloth or hardware cloth under sand run?

[seminolewind]

mlpollard, I have hardware cloth under my pen and it's great. I think probably because my property is on sugar sand, so everything goes thru and dries up and disappears. Could it be that your drainage is preventing the mess from clearing?

 

[mlpollard]

Yes, the area I have my run tends toward wetness so, no matter how much sand I would mix in it would just increase the muck. I have very hard packed soil in my back yard plus there were 2 cloths down, one on top of the other preventing the type of drainage I needed....YIKES! Since I removed the cloth the smell has disappeared and the flies diminished tremendously! I didn't need the cloth in the run as I don't mid a few weeds, especially chickweed and mint to grow, as my Hens love it!
I suppose the method each persons keeps thier run varies from climate to climate. I am in the Midwest and had a WET winter and a WET spring! So I would proceed with caution when putting down the cloth.

 

[vehve]

With drainage issues I would suggest burying underground drainpipes (the kind with loads of holes in it), putting a layer of gravel (about half inch big rocks) and then dirt/sand on top. The drainpipes of course need to drain out to a lower level than than the level which they're buried to at the site that needs to be drained. This way you wont have the icky water collecting in the run.

 

[newchickmomma4]

I wouldn't put anything under the sand.  Rocks coming up would not be a problem. I think hardware cloth would get rusty, and landscape cloth would get stinky.....

Ditto