Major Mud and Heavy Rain - Pea Gravel? Sand? Need advice.

[CyberCountry]

I never understood why people complained about muddy runs. I always had my runs on high ground, never had a problem. Oh, what a lucky fool I was.

Fast forward, present day. I moved. Extremely low lying coop and run, constant rain, mud everywhere. I'm at the end of my rope. Any straw, chips, etc that we put down just turns into soup within a day.

I'm thinking about turning it into a 12x12x2 pea gravel playyard to have a prayer of proper drainage. Is that deep enough? Am I barking up the wrong tree? The puddles breed mosquitoes and the mud is EVERYWHERE. I've also heard about sand, but I worry about it being too fine and being a hot mess when wet as well. Help a drowning friend out.

 

[Banditschickens]

What we did was get a Tree cutter that mulches
up their trees to deliver 6 loads of cut up mulch.
Will be hunting them up again this year..
This was 5 years ago.

 

[aart]

I never understood why people complained about muddy runs. I always had my runs on high ground, never had a problem. Oh, what a lucky fool I was.

Fast forward, present day. I moved. Extremely low lying coop and run, constant rain, mud everywhere. I'm at the end of my rope. Any straw, chips, etc that we put down just turns into soup within a day.

I'm thinking about turning it into a 12x12x2 pea gravel playyard to have a prayer of proper drainage. Is that deep enough? Am I barking up the wrong tree? The puddles breed mosquitoes and the mud is EVERYWHERE. I've also heard about sand, but I worry about it being too fine and being a hot mess when wet as well. Help a drowning friend out.

For now, toss some pallets down to keep birds out of mud and standing water.

No bedding will be a miracle cure(more likely that hot mess) unless you solve the drainage problems first.

Knowing more about your site and location would help garner long term solutions.
Is there any slope/higher ground at all you can work with?
With even a bit of slope to lower ground trenches and berms might keep run off away from coop and run.
Move coop to higher ground?
Is ground always soaked/have standing water or only during extreme weather events?
You may have to 'create' higher ground by dumping a lot of fill dirt, I wouldn't use gravel as it could become a breeding ground for nasty organisms.

Where in this world are you located?
Climate, and time of year, is almost always a factor.
Please add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, (laptop version shown), then it's always there!

 

[CyberCountry]

No movement of coop is possible. Nor is movement of the run location. It's in the lowest part of the yard.

It is always squishy/slightly muddy in long stretches of dry weather, and any rain sends it into liquid.

I live in the southeast of Pennsylvania. I've been here over a year and it's been raining nearly nonstop the entire time. It's fantastic, really.

 

[aart]

Couple dump trucks full of fill might help.

 

[KSH1]

Is the coop raised, or would a bunch of fill end up burying the coop or leaving it as the low/wet spot? I think I'd try that, and/or French drains and berms to try to redirect runoff. Oh, or, if the outdoor part is the only problem, what about giving that a raised floor via pallets or something? Maybe heavy plastic pallets, or treated lumber under plywood or something. I'm picturing the swamp boardwalks they have in FL.

 

[Ghosty]

The fact that the soil is still wet during periods of dry weather makes me think you have a spring or French drain or something similar coming up in that area. We had to bring in 8 loads of fill this year because they ran the french drain from the basement to a septic lateral and it ruined the lateral, and the water kept surfacing. I thought maybe a spring was coming up there, till my uncle worked out what was happening. I know how you feel about the rain. This last year has been a bear. Deep hardwood mulch and a surface water swale or lateral might help.

 

[Backyard chickeneer]

We have drainage issues behind the house. We've dug a channel about 1 for deep x 2 feet wide. At the bottom, we dug extras holes using a fence post digger. There's holes are about 2 feet apart, and go an extra 18" down. We filled all of this with pea gravel, though I wanted to fill with larger Stone chips or a porous lava rock. All of this helps a lot. We also angled the channel so that it gets deeper as it moves to the side of our house. This way it moves any water that it cannot accommodate down and away from all the water issues. Hope this helps. (Ours was for a patio, not a run. Soil type is heavy clay)

 

[aart]

Is the coop raised, or would a bunch of fill end up burying the coop or leaving it as the low/wet spot?

Move the coop, fill the area to raise it, then replace coop.
Need to see a pic of coop first.

 

[Ghosty]

Ya, if there isn't water coming up, you would have to have a non porous soil material like heavy clay. That could be fixed with a good fill.