Outdoor Run..."Bedding"?

[Spikes Chooks]

I've used something similar - called coarse river sand here. Drains well, easy to scoop up poo and the girls can dustbath in it. No flies or smells, it's been brilliant.

 

[mbfarms]

I use sand in my coop...It is so easy to use a kitty litter scoop to pluck out the poo. Plus the sand helps it to dry quicker and limit flies.

In the run, I don't have such a problem with flies. I use large wood shavings (my feed store offers small scale or large and I've changed to the large since it breaks down a bit slower and blows around less in the wind) in the run. The girls seem to really love hunting and pecking through it for whatever treasures I dump in there. When I don't bring them treats, they still spend hours digging through for Lord only knows what. At first I found that I was replenishing often because they would toss it out when they scratched and the wind would carry it away. (altho the bigger shred was better than the smaller. Then I installed an 8 inch lateral/vertical piece of wood all around the perimeter of the coop (used fence panels from lowe's for 2.00 each) to keep the shred from flying through the wire. Works perfectly.

Hope that helps.

 

[KerryB]

So spring is here and my run smells awful!! About midwinter we had a lot of snow and then it melted, leaving my run one big pond! So I laid down about 10 bags of all purpose sand. That cleared the pond right up, but now that spring is here the ground is completely hard packed and smelly. I looked on here to see what others do and still have no idea what to do with my area. Its 6x10 and I have 8 hens. Should I just lay down more sand or try something else?

 

[checkers]

last year I obsessively added grass clippings. When I went to clean out the run in the fall I noticed the clippings had clumped together like grass does (duh) and while it kept the smell down & was hygenic it was wet to their feet! So, now I'm looking for another alternative as well.

 

[kuntrygirl]

I use sand in my run.

 

[fiddlebanshee]

So spring is here and my run smells awful!! About midwinter we had a lot of snow and then it melted, leaving my run one big pond! So I laid down about 10 bags of all purpose sand. That cleared the pond right up, but now that spring is here the ground is completely hard packed and smelly. I looked on here to see what others do and still have no idea what to do with my area. Its 6x10 and I have 8 hens. Should I just lay down more sand or try something else?

I get rid of smells in my run and coop by applying PDZ and DE as needed, The DE kills the flies and if the chickens eat it - it's food grade so no big deal. The PDZ is used in horsestalls to combat smells and dries up poo and other moisture really effectively. If the run is very muddy I may have to apply two times a couple of days apart.

I have never had any smells in my setup. i have 16 chickens in a 7x8 coop and a 24x30 run and free run of about 1/3 acre. The were locked into their 24x30 ft run all winter. Spring is here - no smells.

 

[MommaBee]

My chicks are the same age as yours.  Our run was built on top of a vegetable garden.  We dug out some soil and added sand.  We have a heavy clay soil and I thought we could use the sand/dirt mixture in other gardens or around the berry bushes when we cleaned the run.  I think we could be wrong.  The chicks have the ground so compacted down that it seems like concrete.  They constantly dig around the perimeter leaving ditches that we fill in daily with more dirt or sand.  The soil is definitely not the light loamy soil we were hoping for.  Hopefully someone will chime in and give some recommendations.  I also have pine needles and was thinking of adding some peat moss.  I am already overloaded with shavings from the other animals and the coop.  I am hoping to get a good mixture of compost for the gardens once a week or so, but the ground is so hard that I can't even rake it even anymore.

We have a similar problem in most every area that is high traffic around our place. We have clay soil but sand because we live in a dessertish area, and windstorms blow in a layer of sand. After much research we learn that is pretty much how to make concrete. Clay and Sand. So if you add organic matter such as peet moss, leaves, grass clippings, it greatly improves the soil. Hope this helps you out some!

 

[Frizzle13]

I use bark or wood chips

 

[MandalaMaMa]

Been wondering the same thing. Thanks for the post. Lots of good ideas. never thought about using DE in the grass .... Thanks fiddlebanshee.

 

[Afishindc]

Thanks for your post. We also have covered runs--do you have problems with moisture? Can you chickens find bugs etc in your bedding? How deep is it and how often do you change it? I was all gung-ho about this method but have been reading recently about the many problems which can occur. Thanks so much for your help.
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