little sand, lotsa sand and what if it fails?

Dhkoenig

Songster
Sep 21, 2020
506
457
158
Bergen County New Jersey
Hi Guys - I decided to bite the bullet and I am going to put sand in my big dirt run. We have two covered runs that are attached by a chicken door. The original run is 10x16 and has a slanted corrugated plastic roof and has one side with corrugated plastic and then another little panel that is also covered but two walls are completely open with just hardware cloth. The second and newer part is 10x12 and has a slanted shingled roof but no siding other than hardware cloth on 3 sides (the side that adjoins them is covered)

So.....I have done plain dirt and I am a daily scooper and it has been fine but three of my new pullets have feathered feet so I think the dirt (esp when wet from rain) will be bad. I tried chopped straw as an experiment and also shavings but when they get wet it is worse than dirt because when shavings get wet and combine with any kicked up droppings etc it is just a cesspool of illness waiting to happen even if I scoop every day (which I do with OCD fervor) So..... I decided Sand would be great but I only ordered 1 cubic yard which doesn't achieve the 3-4 inches of sand that everyone says you should do.

What is holding me back from doing the entire 4 inches in both runs is....at least with the straw and hay, when things didn't go as planned I could rake it all out and use it as mulch and go back to the dirt run. If that happens with sand, UGH cannot imagine how heavy it would be to try to get that out. If it didn't end up being a good option, could I just put top soil over it and use the sand as drainage under the topsoil?

I am not sure if I should start off with just like an inch in both runs instead of 3-4 inches to see if it is good so I don't get stuck having to get rid of tonnage of sand or if I should just go all in and do it the way everyone says 3-4 inches and if it ends up not being great, with rain or whatever, I can just clean it up and pour a ton of top soil over it.

Thoughts?
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I think you will be happy with the sand :highfive:
Of course if it does not meet your expectations,, you can easily cover it over with topsoil.
I don't see topsoil, as being any better than sand. :idunno
Have you used or considered shredded wood chips,?? I have an area in back of yard that I replenish with wood chips from the tree cutting service. I get a load of it free when I need one,
I suggest you experiment,, and just add sand to one run. Then If you like it,, do the second run.
Everyone has different opinions on how deep the layer should be. In your case,,, you have that one yard. Just add it all into the first run.
If you like it,, then get more for second run.
I know that many peeps are divided on sand, or no sand. It may be a climate reason,, or poor drainage reason,, or many other reasons.
In my zone,, sand works just fine. I have a covered run, (multiple tarps) but only a small area with sand. My run area is about 16 feet by 70 feet. Run has other things besides chickens,,

WISHING YOU BEST,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:highfive:
 
I think you nailed it. Except, you are unlikely to want to remove the sand. A cubic yard of sand will get you about an inch. It may not last forever with the birds scratching, but it has still improved drainage and increased elevation. It will be there long enough for you to decide if sand is right for you and if you want to add more. Doing it little-by-little also spreads out the cost and the work.
 
I am not sure if I should start off with just like an inch in both runs instead of 3-4 inches to see if it is good so I don't get stuck having to get rid of tonnage of sand or if I should just go all in and do it the way everyone says 3-4 inches and if it ends up not being great, with rain or whatever, I can just clean it up and pour a ton of top soil over it.
I would put the sand in one run first, and see if you like it that way. That lets it be deeper than spreading it in two places, so you get a better test for the same amount of sand.
 
I think you will be happy with the sand :highfive:
Of course if it does not meet your expectations,, you can easily cover it over with topsoil.
I don't see topsoil, as being any better than sand. :idunno
Have you used or considered shredded wood chips,?? I have an area in back of yard that I replenish with wood chips from the tree cutting service. I get a load of it free when I need one,
I suggest you experiment,, and just add sand to one run. Then If you like it,, do the second run.
Everyone has different opinions on how deep the layer should be. In your case,,, you have that one yard. Just add it all into the first run.
If you like it,, then get more for second run.
I know that many peeps are divided on sand, or no sand. It may be a climate reason,, or poor drainage reason,, or many other reasons.
In my zone,, sand works just fine. I have a covered run, (multiple tarps) but only a small area with sand. My run area is about 16 feet by 70 feet. Run has other things besides chickens,,

WISHING YOU BEST,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,:highfive:
Thanks so much for this! and wishing you the best too!
 
From one daily scooper to another. Make sure you dont get the sand more then 2-3 inches deep or it will start to compact and harbor stinky stuff underneath. Just make sure you keep it turned often. I use pine pellety/sawdust. I could imagine sand it would work a similar way.
 
I've got a combination of sand and pea gravel in my run. My run has got a slight slope and I desperately needed something for erosion when we kept getting monsoons for rain. I don't have a heavy layer of either sand or gravel but together they work well. It dries quickly, doesn't smell and the sand dries out poop fast. Since your run is covered, scooping pop will be so easy with sand.. depending on your area. As everyone else has said, if you don't like it, you can put something over it. Wishing you well. 🙂
 
UPDATE:

The sand was really fine. I took NatJ's advice and only put it on one side. The side where the little girls were. For that purpose it was really great because the little ones poop like little popcorn makers! It is constant! So that gave me two things 1) begin glad I had the sand in there so I could see them all and get them and 2) the ability to scoop out what was not visible below the surface. It was great for that purpose but then I started getting worried because all of that poop, daily, started to become part of the sand. Even me scooping every single poop every single day there are parts that just incorporated in with the grains of sand and as time went bye I started feeling like the sand was probably starting to have a bit of a high concentration of tiny bits of poop mixed in. I got grossed out and took it all out. The other downside of the sand is that there were a couple of days of really hard rain in a row and both runs got fairly wet. The sand side smelled way worse than the dirt side.

While I KNOW that this same thing is true of the dirt floor, as much as I shovel, I am bound to miss part of one or miss one completely, in my mind (I have not been able to find any evidence to back this up) I feel like whatever I miss will biodegrade better once I turn over all the soil. Also Sand is not compostable and we recently decided we want to give composting a try, so I decided to go forward with dirt. Removing the sand from the one run was a couple of days of hard work. I had to shovel the sand into buckets that I could lift, then dump those into a wheelbarrow, then once I get a few bucketloads into the wheelbarrow, take that across our property to a spot where I could dump and spread it.

This was one take-away. If you are easily grossed out like me, after a while of having the sand there (or dirt, or whatever) I like to change it over from time to time with fresh, and hauling out dirt is a lot easier. 1) it is not as heavy 2) it is dirt! So you can put it basically anywhere in addition to the composter.

SO...in conclusion...I think sand is definitely a viable and great material for a covered run. In the beginning, the sand was wonderful! I kept thinking "why in the world would anyone use anything else?!?!" but that was before it started to get bit by bit less pure and untainted, and then I started not loving it, so our ultimate decision was to go back to dirt. This time (compared to times in the past) Every day after I scoop (or as I scoop) I use a shovel to turn over the dirt and smash it up good with the shovel/rake so it doesn't get compacted.

Hope this is helpful to someone else out there!
 
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UPDATE:

The sand was really fine. I took NatJ's advice and only put it on one side. The side where the little girls were. For that purpose it was really great because the little ones poop like little popcorn makers! It is constant! So that gave me two things 1) begin glad I had the sand in there so I could see them all and get them and 2) the ability to scoop out what was not visible below the surface. It was great for that purpose but then I started getting worried because all of that poop, daily, started to become part of the sand. Even me scooping every single poop every single day there are parts that just incorporated in with the grains of sand and as time went bye I started feeling like the sand was probably starting to have a bit of a high concentration of tiny bits of poop mixed in. I got grossed out and took it all out. The other downside of the sand is that there were a couple of days of really hard rain in a row and both runs got fairly wet. The sand side smelled way worse than the dirt side.

While I KNOW that this same thing is true of the dirt floor, as much as I shovel, I am bound to miss part of one or miss one completely, in my mind (I have not been able to find any evidence to back this up) I feel like whatever I miss will biodegrade better once I turn over all the soil. Also Sand is not compostable and we recently decided we want to give composting a try, so I decided to go forward with dirt. Removing the sand from the one run was a couple of days of hard work. I had to shovel the sand into buckets that I could lift, then dump those into a wheelbarrow, then once I get a few bucketloads into the wheelbarrow, take that across our property to a spot where I could dump and spread it.

This was one take-away. If you are easily grossed out like me, after a while of having the sand there (or dirt, or whatever) I like to change it over from time to time with fresh, and hauling out dirt is a lot easier. 1) it is not as heavy 2) it is dirt! So you can put it basically anywhere in addition to the composter.

SO...in conclusion...I think sand is definitely a viable and great material for a covered run. In the beginning, the sand was wonderful! I kept thinking "why in the world would anyone use anything else?!?!" but that was before it started to get bit by bit less pure and untainted, and then I started not loving it, so our ultimate decision was to go back to dirt. This time (compared to times in the past) Every day after I scoop (or as I scoop) I use a shovel to turn over the dirt and smash it up good with the shovel/rake so it doesn't get compacted.

Hope this is helpful to someone else out there!
Thank you for such a detailed update!
 

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