Maintaining a concrete chook run

[moody-chicken]

Hi I am having to use a 17 x 10 ft concreted area for my chicken run. I was intending to put down sand and if I need to a bit of soil to bulk it out. How do I keep it clean though. I thought I could try and rake the solid poops out but if the whole run gets wet it will all just stick together and go like a solid mud pie. If I break this down and turn it over do I keep adding more sand each month to top up? Not sure if I will end up with a stinky cesspit at this rate despite best endeavours to keep clean. Does anyone have a concrete run and how do they maintain it? Thanks guys

 

[ChickenCanoe]

One of my runs is half concrete and I cover that area with straw. I then rake it out anywhere from a week to 3 weeks and replace. The frequency depends on how many birds are in there. Right now there are 3 roos in it and it is due for cleaning at 3 weeks. When there are 10 birds I do it at least weekly.
If there is no soil, the downside is they won't be able to dustbathe so you may want to make an area for them to do so. They like to do it daily.
Can you cover part of it so it stays dry?

 

[moody-chicken]

Yeah I could possibly use some tarp or material to cover half of it but I think with our weather over here in the UK it was still be quite damp and wet most of the year. Straw sounds cheap but I'm wondering if the poop would fall through the straw and make the concrete nasty. It's a large area to clear out, get out a hosepipe and chip off the poop plus no drainage back there. Hmmm gonna need to think about this one.