MiaS
Songster
Unfortunately sand is not a good solution for clay soils. As you've noticed basically sand + clay = concrete. Organic material will be your friendMy 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.