Regrets on sand in run?

[M_Struna]

I currently have a dirt run and am considering adding sand. I started with sand in the coop. My young girls had been sleeping in two of the nesting boxes until I blocked them off. Prior to doing this I just scooped the poop out of them every 1-2 days. When I pulled the sand out of the boxes to block them, apparently there was enough urine in the sand that now the coop has taken on an odor that I can’t seem to get rid of, no matter how much barn lime, Saturday lime and PDZ I add to it. The plan is to remove it all, paint the walls and do hemp bedding in the next couple weeks, whenever the weather warms a bit. That said…I am having reservations about sand in the run. It’s covered but gets some moisture in certain areas when it rains. I’m planning on doing roll up tarps and putting up clear plastic roofing panels on the corner that gets it most. I don’t care to have the same odor in the run that I’m dealing with in the coop, although it would obviously have much better ventilation. My question is, has anyone done sand, horse pellets or other material in their run under similar circumstances and then gone back to dirt?

 

[ChickyCh00k]

Depending on where you live (you can add this info to your profile), sand may not be ideal. Many people swear by it and use it in coop and run (though I've not heard of it being used in nest boxes...).

The most frequent advice you'll see for run flooring is woodchips and/or material that will degrade over time (dry leaves, grass clippings, etc.). With a covered run, the material will not degrade as quickly (if it isn't getting frequent moisture), but you can rake it once in a while to mix in the poops.

I started with sand in my covered run. I live in Michigan, so we get hot summers and cold winters and everything in between. I found the sand to be not so great - I was scooping poop multiple times/day (and at that time I only had 8 young pullets - I can't imagine what it would be like with the 20 hens I now have ). The run also started to smell not so great in a fairly short period of time, despite scooping poo multiple times/day. So I came here for advice.

Woodchips was the consensus. I have been using them ever since. I tried to get as much sand out as possible (we put about 10" in our run), but there's still several inches of it under the woodchips, which does not help with the degradation process.

If I were you, I would ditch the sand everywhere and use woodchips in the run. As for the coop, advice would depend on whether you have poop boards under the roosts or not.

Just a side note: Chickens don't "urinate", but their poo does contain urates (the white stuff on top of the poo) and ammonia, which is what you may have been smelling. With sand, it's pretty important to clean poo daily IMO.

There are many other members here who have more experience than I and I'm sure they'll have additional (possibly better) advice! Good luck! It's always a bit of trial and error with these things!