Smelly and Muddy Coop

Woodchips help alot with erosion, smell, mud 👍
I agree. We were having a smell issue after we got a good amount of rain. Put down wood chips and absolutely no smell or puddles. As a temporary solution I put down pine pellets since I had them in the garage. It made it smell super nice but they were a pain to remove before I put the chips.
 
@linguini ...is this in your coop or run....pics please??

Oh, and.....
Where in this world are you located?
Climate, and time of year, is almost always a factor.
Please add your general geographical location to your profile.
It's easy to do, and then it's always there!
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@aart
I'm in central NJ. We have a small coop connected to a 8x8x8 cube, tarp-covered run. And then we have a bird-net covered extended run of 40x60 to keep the hawks out. I use sand for the flooring of the cube, and pine shavings for the coop - which is of course always dry.

The cubical run is a different story since I have to keep two ft of side wall on top open for ventilation, so even with the tarp cover, some rain/snow still gets in. Sand works well for the flooring of the cubical run. We plan to build a roof for the cube when the weather gets better. I've also purchased another coop for extension (we are not handy with building ourselves) - but installation will have to wait when the ground is no longer frozen! Most of the extended yard is now covered with 2-3 ft of snow/ice!

Pictures below. You can see the crappy job we did with the tarp (everything is an after thought being the accidental chooks parents) - but the tarp works in draining the rain to a home made gutter, and we can shake the snow into a bucket. During the big snow storm we had few weeks ago, we had to remove the snow three times during the day. We were worried that the structure was not strong enough to hold heavy snow.
(the third photo you can see the 2 ft snow outside the run, but the run inside stays dry!)
 

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don't use woodchips outside, they will just get soggy and won't fix a thing, sand sounds like yur best bet.

I'd dig a small ditch around their run so water can drain out and settle in that. But this is mainly an issue while the snow is thawing and everything is wet, soon as the snow is gone it should get better again but it will be the same next year unless you make some changes.
 
don't use woodchips outside, they will just get soggy and won't fix a thing, sand sounds like yur best bet.
With proper drainage at the site, chunky wood chips can fix a lot of dampness issues as the irregular pieces allow for surface drainage and aeration. My run is pretty much the first thing in my yard that dries out after rain or snow.
 
I second wood chips. If you have a tree felling company nearby (or even look up free mulch on Gumtree), they will often dump a big load onto your front lawn for free. That’s what I use and have done for my run. The chunky chips dry really quick (the top layer) and the bottom composts slowly. No smell so far. I really like it and the chickens do too. I do have tarp over the run area to keep them dry though. They only go into the coop at night to sleep (so far) and hopefully in future to lay (nesting boxes are in the coop).
 

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