Sand in the coop - does the sand need to be completely changed periodically?

[rtwood42]

I am a soon to be new chicken keeper (although my wife has raised chickens before). After much research, I have decided to use a hybrid litter method - sand in the coop, deep litter in the run.

The first place I read about using sand (both in the coop and run, in this case) seemed to indicate that they get a couple of yards of sand delivered each year to put in the coop and run. However, they didn't explicitly say whether they remove the old sand and replace it with the new sand or just top off the sand level. I haven't come across anything else that implies that the sand needs to be changed out and I haven't read anything that says that the sand doesn't need to be changed out.

So how about it? Do you need to periodically need to remove the sand and replace it with new (like you do with a cat box)? Or do you just top off to account for losses?

Also, if you do need to remove the sand periodically, what on earth do you do with all of that sand???!!!

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[Merro]

I've got sand in my coop also as a recommendation from here.
It's been... 5 months now. I haven't done anything but "litter scooping" once a week. Enough has been removed through doing that that I've had to replenish the amount just once so far.

If it looks especially dirty in one spot I'll take up a bit of the sand...


Otttheeerrwiiise... It's really pretty clean! I may change it yearly if I feel the need, but with it being this nice at half that time, I almost don't feel much of a need. Depends on you and your circumstance, water leaks, dirt accumulation, etc I suppose!

We're gonna be quadrupling the size of our coop soon, changing out to an alum shed. Still going to go with the sand idea! Probably going to use a metal grate this next time around the size of the floor so we can just lift it and all the poo falls to one side in a long bin. Shuffle it back under the sand afterwards - super easy cleanups.

Good luck!