Sand as bedding/litter

[AGeese]

Hi! I live in north Florida and my entire yard is literally sand. It rains and will wash away the organic dark matter and it’s just sand. So I guess I’ve been using sand in my run the whole time since my run is about 1/2 acre fenced in. The sand drains very well so that’s a positive. As for your indoor area, well my birds don’t spend much time Indoors except to sleep. I use zeolite ( sweet-pdz) sprinkled on the coop floor and I use dropping boards sprinkled with it to limit the amount they will walk through. It has worked fine. Forgive my incredulity but I also have read all these impacted crop stories about fine grade sand and buying river sand or crushed gravel and I just have to shake My head because every chicken in Florida eats plenty of fine grade sand. It’s all we have! The whole State is one big sand dune over a coral reef that became limestone and now is being slowly eroded into….you guessed it…beach sand! The articles say the worst part of using beach sand is that it has silica and you (and chickens) can inhale its dust and scar the lungs and that lung damage can lead To cancer….hmm, I wondered if surfers and Lifeguards have high rates of lung cancer? No, I am Logical, so I doubt that this is a real issue with proper ventilation. If I hear scientific evidence that all Florida chickens must be kept indoors and must only eat from clean feeders That are not “contaminated” with fine grade sand I will rethink my position. Until then I say if you can try it in a smaller area first to see if you like it.

Sand is great, but it like everything has to be managed right. The problem is it has to be dry for the chickens and that's when it easily releases the silica they have the warnings for.

I had a tub of it in the garage where the coop was, and I had plumes from their dust bathing and that was killing me (figuratively) coughs, etc. The dust was everywhere and I'd be sweeping it up in my face all the time if they weren't kicking it up.

I don't see this being a problem outdoors or at beaches so your right on that. But for a coop what I do now is add a thin layer of something over the sand to catch droppings. Sand is otherwise great for absorption and is inert, that's not to say you can't get pests, but perhaps less likely.

I found I really needed to slow rake when I was cleaning the broader otherwise it doesn't take much to kick up some dust when it's dry.

I'm in another thread discussing coffee grounds and so my next bit is to try that as a top layer with sand as substrate, because sand lasts a lot longer than anything else I know of, just be careful with it if you don't have ventialtion like you say and stir it gently.

 

[AGeese]

*addendum, be careful with coffee grounds. I'm not entirely sold on the commerical decaf variety yet.

 

[Orpingtons Mom]

I’m in SE Wyoming and sand is awesome. I have poop boards with Zeolyte and then regular sand on the floor. In my dry climate the sand quickly absorbs the moisture and it evaporates so scooping/raking is easy. I’ve had up to 30 chickens in my 8x12 coop (my silly hens abandoned the other coop) and scooping has been easy unless it’s cold enough that the moisture freezes before it can evaporate. Usually that means my sand layer is getting too thin so I should add more.

What do you use for scooping???

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

I use a kitty litter scoop and a kid size rake.

 

[Orpingtons Mom]

AHA! You pull it all together in a pile, then sift??

 

[Cinnamon Roll]

AHA! You pull it all together in a pile, then sift??

I do that on the floor to reduce all the bending and crouching. Usually the poop boards just get scooped with the scooper.

 

[mommiesrcool]

I live in fl and i used to use sand and with a cat litter scooper id scoop the poop out everyday but it was a lot of work so now I just put cardboard on the trays ( my coop is a pre built one from tsc) and replace it ever week.