The sky is falling!!!!

[sunket77]

It's RAIN!

I think my chickens have only seen rain maybe three times in their life!! The times that they have seen it it was for like and hour or so nothing special. The run is a total mess, muddy and gross! Yesterday is just flooded in there so my chickies spent almost the whole day in the coop! After of course I totally drenched myself and slopped in the mud trying to get them in there....what we don't do for these silly birds!

I came to realize the ground in my run needs to be built up because it's one of the lower spots in the yard. (we don't have grass that takes rain to grow!) I am afraid sand would just run off. Can anyone recommend what to do? I have a dirt floor in the run with hay and DE that I rake out every so often. The DE has not seemed to help with the lice issue, maybe I didn't but enough?

This is also postponing my treating my flock for lice. I assume because of the rain it would be pointless to treat the coop, run and birds? Also, how do most of you go about treating the run or coop? I am afraid of water or food contamination. I have sevin dust.
Thanks!

 

[meriruka]

You could try dusting the birds with DE (not near the face) and sprinkling it in the coop before putting down the bedding, dust the roosts & nest boxes as well. For the run, you could try filling holes and low spots with sand or gravel then covering it with dirt. They may just dig it all up though........