Pics Of Uncovered Sand Run After Rain (UPDATED AFTER 12 INCHES OF RAIN - POST 1)

[kuntrygirl]

Yes, I looked at the sand.  That's why I'm (pleasantly) amazed!

I also understand the concept of the poo getting washed down into the tiny gaps between the sand when it rains.  But I've always just felt like after a few years, isn't it inevitable that all those gaps will be full?  Because, say, in the event that every 5 years I have two yards of poo-sand-cement, thats way too much sand for me to dump in my garden.  Unless I start raising burdock root or something!  
  
So...  your run is beautiful, and I'm impressed; but I guess I'm asking, has anyone reading this done this for 5 years or more, and is it still disappearing?

You surely have a point. I would love to hear if anyone has not touched their sand run in 5 years. That would give me hope that it will still look the same.

Although I have not had to do anything in 2 years, I will be adding more sand. I'm sure a little sand has washed away over the course of 2 years, so I want to put that sand back. Because you brought it up about the poop, I think I will go in there this weekend and rake and disturb the sand to see what I find. I will take pics and post to let you know what it looks like after I have disturbed the sand.

 

[kuntrygirl]

(and thanks for posting the pix and info!  Ive always been curious about this...)

You are very welcome!

 

[Valntyn]

I would be very curious if you checked under your pen's sand to see how well poop was filtering away...

Currently, we use pond rocks in our duck pen. We love it for the most part: it's pretty, it keeps smell down, there's no muddy mess from their pool, the flies are gone and it's easy on duck feet.

But we're finding that during the Winter months, there is no hosing anything down, so any late Fall or early Spring thaws (where the ground and the poop thaws but the hoses don't) equal stinky pens. Also, if you dig down under the pond rocks (turning the poopy rocks when you can't rinse them off), you find there's a mess under there.

When we were first considering the pen's ground, we hemmed and hawed between pond rocks and sand. We chose the rocks and love it for all the reasons in the first list, but the second list is making us rethink things. We're seriously considering getting sand this Spring...

 

[DucheneEGG]

What kind of sand did you use? Sweet PDZ? Playground sand? Beach sand?

 

[kuntrygirl]

I used what they call "washed sand".

 

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

What did you find when you disturbed the sand?

 

[kuntrygirl]

It's sand through and through. The only thing that I see is sand.

The chickens keep it filtered for me. They enjoy scratching through the sand so they are sifting it and mixing it up. I literally don't have to do anything to the sand. The chickens do all the work.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Since the muddy chicken yard, I have covered 1/2 of my chicken yard with sand. It looks like a beach. Here are some pics of what my chicken yard looks like now that I have switched to sand in the chicken yard itself.

 

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

Looks great!

I have some sand but not a whole lot. I need to put boards along the edge of the run to keep the sand from washing away.

 

[kbh82310]

Kuntrygirl what do you keep your ducks on? I have 3 that I plan on putting with my chickens who are on sand (which I love) but when I tried them on sand in their pen it was impossible to clean cause the sand was wet and all caked up. So now I have paper towels on top of the sand which helps but I can't put paper towels down when they go in the barn.