So to break up the tick talk. I'm gonna build my coop soon and was wondering if anyone has used sand in the coop. I talked to wife about it and she brought up what I I was wondering which is how does it holds up in the cold winter. I told her we could run a duel floor. Have sand in summer then winter put plywood over it then the pine chips.
Have used sand. LOOOoooved it when I had less than 10 chickens. Hated it when I had more than 10. Actually took it out and put in chips when I got up to 20 birds.
Sand was easy to scoop the poop out of, but had to be done DAILY or it got mashed in and you would step on it and that was a bigger mess still. Sand is not "green" for the purposes of composting, chips are; therefore my poop didn't compost. Lost a year's worth of good manure to that fact.
You can't just add to the top of sand. Well, you can, but it does no good, the smell is still there. Chips you throw some more down and clean it out once in a while to keep the flies down. Every time you throw out more chips, it smells fresher. And beleive me, in the summer the coop can get very very ripe.
I still have a coop with sand. 6 birds in it. In the winter the poop froze and I couldn't scoop it...perhaps my sand was too shallow in that coop.
Right now I have a nice big pile of chips and poo composting to use this spring. When all is said and done, given I am an avid gardener, I am going to stick with chips. When I clean out the small side that currently has sand in it, I am going to put wood chips back in.
Regardless of what you choose make sure that you build in something to hold the floor covering in the coop. My door is, well... door height, and it scoops everything along with it and makes it so the door won't close right and I am constantly scooping stuff back into the coop, away from the door opening. Design flaw on my part.
