more dirt over my dirt-floor run

[Dhkoenig]

Hi All. I am one of those weirdos who scoops out as many poops as I can see from our dirt-floor run every day. Every once in a while I will dump a whole bunch of new dirt in there so they have a nice fresh blanket of earth to dig in. Usually I first clean out all the poops and try to rake up as much spilled food as I can possibly get up. I am about to go out there and freeze my bottom off dumping my nice fresh dirt that I just got so I am wondering - is it necessary to really clean the dirt floor before I dump like 3-4 inches of fresh dirt over the top or will the spilled food and yucky stuff just biodegrade on its own under there?

 

[Boise-girls]

If you're cleaning it up every day, I wouldn't think there would be enough poop and food left to cause issues, regardless of all the other variables that might be in play.

 

[K0k0shka]

That's... ambitious. But ineffective. Why don't you throw down some sort of bedding instead of dirt? Carbon-based bedding (wood chips, dry leaves, pine shavings, etc.) reacts with the nitrogen in the poop to form compost. The poop degrades naturally and doesn't smell, so you don't have to clean it out. Bare dirt won't do that. There's nothing in it to balance out the poop in the equation. So you're left with just poop. Not only that, but dirt turns to mud when it rains, and it freezes solid when it's cold, depriving your chickens of a medium to scratch in or dustbathe in. And if it freezes into a sheet of ice, it can be dangerous to walk on, too (both for yourself and for your chickens). Do yourself a favor and, if you're going to be hauling something regularly, haul some wood chips instead of soil. Bonus points - they don't weigh as much as soil does either!

 

[3KillerBs]

I wouldn't.

But I'm a fan of deep bedding.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/using-deep-bedding-in-a-small-coop.76343/