Sand in the Coop?

[The Rusty Nichols]

Hi all! We are building a fenced run around our coop in the coming week and are still undecided on what to use for the floor covering inside the coop. I don't want to use straw or pine shavings, and I'm not really interested in the deep litter method. I'm thinking I would like to use sand mixed with a little DE or PDZ, but I'm wondering if anyone else does this and how it works out? I'm in Michigan so the winters get cold. We do have electricity in the coop and plan to heat in the winter. The coop has a dirt floor. Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[X_and_Z]

I use sand in my coop and love it but I am in a very different climate (dry & mild). Sand works very well if you are:

• Willing to clean every day or close to everyday - just a minute is all it takes, but you do have to do it frequently or you lose the benefit of being able to sift the poop out of the sand because the chickens will walk through the poop and break it up into pieces too small to sift out
• Have a dry interior to your coop - sand does not work well if it is wet. Dry means that your coop doesn't leak/have condensation issues and it has adequate ventilation so that the interior is not damp

My coop looks pristine with about 1 minute of effort a day - it takes longer for me to feed the girls treats or collect the eggs.

 

[mountain chicken]

Hi all! We are building a fenced run around our coop in the coming week and are still undecided on what to use for the floor covering inside the coop. I don't want to use straw or pine shavings, and I'm not really interested in the deep litter method. I'm thinking I would like to use sand mixed with a little DE or PDZ, but I'm wondering if anyone else does this and how it works out? I'm in Michigan so the winters get cold. We do have electricity in the coop and plan to heat in the winter. The coop has a dirt floor. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I'm in Colorado I been thinking about sand myself as from all I hear its easier to keep clean also a good ground insulator , I'm also in a cold climate I ran electric in the coop to run the base board heaters to keep the coop at a steady 60* I also installed a elect fence to deter all the bears and all the other predators the coop power will be run by a generator I converted to diesel 10g runs for 6 1/2 days

now waiting on the chicks

 

[LittleMissCountry]

I have an elevated coop and just switched to sand in the slide out tray under the roosts. So much better! I can scoop out the poop each day, and it smells better. I will probably put sand in the run as well. I was going to see how well it did in the coop first. I just bought construction grade sand at Lowes. I was going through so many pine shavings and having to clean it all the time to control the smell.