Raised Run suggestions

Coupon Cook

Chirping
9 Years
Jun 3, 2012
13
1
77
Hi, We've bought property that used to be a plant nursery. There are a few old Greenhouses remaining and we're going to put them to good use soon. I don't want my chickens pecking the dirt because its likely still full of nursery chemicals. Instead I want to build a raised coop and run system. I'm thinking about rotating the girls out from green house to green house as growing seasons end. So a compost house, a chicken house, and a green house. It's very wet here and I don't want water buildup in the boxes. What can I line these boxes with and still keep the livestock and crops rotated? I've just read something about deep litter and will be researching that as well. Any suggestions on how to keep the chickens healthy in a raised bed run? I was thinking about building long boxes and lining those with a layer of compost and straw. But these are sizeable and I wouldn't be able to muck them out. I need a system as low maintenance as possible. Any suggestions are welcome!
 
Might be easier having the ground bulldozed and cleared out, and then bringing in clean fresh topsoil to cover. I think my entire time on here, I've only seen a raised run once, and it didn't work very well. Also deep litter is a composting system, which means yes it can compost wood as well, so depending on your climate a wood run floor would rot out and need to be replaced over and over.

Chickens also shouldn't be kept in working greenhouses, the heat and lack of ventilation could kill them. Or are you planning to refurbish the greenhouse so you're just using the frame only?

Any photos of the area you're working with?
 
Pics would help!

agree with @rosemarythyme that bringing in new dirt might be best, depends. So, pics can help us more.

if there are already raised bed frames, I suppose those could be used with dirt and shavings inside them. In fact, you could move many together to create a run. The dirt could be a mix of sawdust, wood ash (only wood ash, not garbage ash), peat moss, sand snd dirt. This will be light/fluffy, nice for dust bathing.

we ended up bringing in 102 tons of dirt to level out the garden and run area. It made a huge and positive difference. Our garden is all raised beds. Run is ground, but we did add about 1/2 ton of sawdust first, then about 15 yards of chipped wood. We added peat moss and sand to favorite dust bath areas. Our run is completely covered. We got our sawdust from a manufacturing company. They bag it up and give it away -usually employees take it to use for animal bedding, but we know one of those employees, so they offered it.
 

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