Stall mats and pallets

[dreamwallaby]

So I was thinking about the run I want to build and wondering if any of you have used stall mats? I was thinking of laying wood pallets down, then a stall mat over top. The stall mats would be easy to clean and sweep, I could even lay bark chips over them. And the pallets are easy to come by so I could replace as needed. Then I would be keeping the chickens above the mud, but also making it easy to clean. Any thoughts??
Thanks

 

[jenjscott]

sounds good to me, my chickens would love it.

 

[patandchickens]

It might be semi-adequate as a very temporary emergency mud fix.

But it would suck as a permanent arrangement.

First, because one of the most strong and basic instincts of a chicken is to scratch and peck and dig, and without 4-8+" of material to do that in, they just don't seem so happy.

And (more important) second because you would be creating a LOVELY mouse/rat condo there, and have a good chance of soon being up to your eyeballs in rodents.

I would highly suggest doing a normal run. If there is a drainage problem at the site, fix that first by trenching, using fill, etc (see my 'fix a muddy run' page, link in .sig below); then either leave it be until/unless mud develops, or put a load of sand or some such thing in right from the beginning to keep bad mud from ever developing.

You will have happier and healthier chickens, and fewer rodents, that way

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[farmgirljen]

You would be better off to put the stall mats down on the bare ground, rather than over top of pallets. I have some strips of rubber matt through my run, and it is easy to clean- as for rodents- yikes! I am just getting rid of that problem! Our barn that our birds are housed in is bare dirt floor, and I used pallets to build up areas to store stuff on- big mistake. It became the rat hotel! now we had to deal with poisons, traps, etc... and now removing dead rats from underneathth e pallets....so now our barn will have a few shelves with things in rubber tubs up off the ground- rather than using pallets. Editing to add putting the muclh over top of the matts on the ground would still give them a place to scratch....and be eazsy to clean-

 

[dreamwallaby]

Thank you guys for the responses. I agree on scratching the pallets idea but I might still get the mats. I can give them plenty to scratch up over top and just put it all in the compost when I clean

 

[gryeyes]

I used a stall mat in my coop to cover the floor, over which I put a deep layer of pine shavings and a large boot tray directly under the roosts.