Mud, mud and more mud

[photo chick]

We recently finished building our coop - yay! But while we were doing it it down-poured every day. The day we put in the fence I had to dig 18" down and then re-fill the trench with the dirt (mud) when the fencing was in. Needless to say, the area that was supposed to be grassy for the chickens is now one big mud pit. We have covered it with mulching hay but haven't really done much else. I figure at least they are comfortable to walk on it.
But truthfully they don't seem to like it much

They tend to stick to hanging out underneath the tractor (a coop toy) where it is dry.

What can I do to the mud area? I am thinking that perhaps I need to partition their run up and lay grass seed then when that takes, switch it up. I'm not sure if weeds or anything will grow at this point with them trampling everything down.

Any ideas?

 

[patandchickens]

It's what was going to happen anyhow. No point in fighting the inevitable by trying to seed or anything like that. Mulch hay is a good triage step; personally I'd just leave it at that and see how it goes when things dry out, if you think the run is large enough in relation to # chickens to *possibly* not be permanently nasty. Or if you think it's a lost cause, then wait til it dries out, remove the mulch hay, and then get in a truckload of sand or sand-gravel mix or something like that.

They are probably hanging under the tractor as much because the new run is New and Scary, as anything. Give 'em time, they'll get over it. If they have a treat they're really avid about when you scatter it on the ground -scratch, kitchen scraps, wahtever - you could scatter that around in full view as they watch in hopes it'll troll them out.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[photo chick]

Thanks. You raise a good point here... what do chickens prefer to run around in? The coop is approximately 20 feet by 12 feet so plenty of room to do pretty much whatever I need to do. Do they like to scratch in sand and gravel as opposed to grass?