Any good alternatives to just dirt in the run. Will anything like rocks, or such work? Something hat dosen't get too dirty when it rains, and something that they cant really mess up easily.
I use plain old sand. Helps keep them from tracking so much mud in their house and the eggs stay cleaner.
The one fixed run we have has sand and we throw leaves in now and then to break the monotony, gives them something to scratch through. The rain will flush it(the sand).
I have wood chips made from a couple of trees I had taken down (thus, free!). I like it pretty well -- the chickens can scratch through it to the dirt to take their dust baths, and the poop falls down between the chips and decomposes. I do poop-scoop it every day, though.