Thoughts on uncovered coop run flooring?

[aart]

Sand. they can give themselves a "clean" dirt bath and a source of grit.

But what about the poops?

 

[The Lazy L]

But what about the poops?

Poop dries and the chickens work back into the sand. 6 or 7 years (third flock) on the same sand.

 

[aart]

Poop dries and the chickens work back into the sand. 6 or 7 years (third flock) on the same sand.

So your sand is saturated with pulverized poop....not so 'clean' IMO.
And tho your run is covered if that sand gets wet it must stink.

 

[thecreekhouse]

Love your setup. Seems you have a good amount of land? Not that lucky here for now anyways.

We have 8 cleared acres and another 24 wooded acres. But I keep my hens either locked up in their 4x16 covered and enclosed run or I give them extra time with fresh grass in an uncovered fenced area that encircles the coop and run. My coop and run are movable as is the fence so I can move my whole set up to fresh grass every month or two. Even though we have plenty of land, I’m too chicken to try actual free ranging. The uncovered fenced area is as close as I’m willing to get to freeranging.

 

[starri33]

Since you are in a rental, I think that I would go either with hay or straw.. sand will not be easy to remove when you move.. it can be straw or hay can and will be turned by your hens and you can also just once a week, rake it all up and use for mulch somewhere so that you avoid your chickens getting into the mold if there is any.

 

[Aji Dulce]

I was just about to change that as I meant to write in there Pine Chips not Cedar. So you use shredded wood outside in the open area or in the coop?

I use wood chips in the run also. Inside the coop pine shavings.

 

[Old Philosopher]

Straw and hay tend to mat when wet and will mold heavily.

I agree 110%! Stay away from straw/hay litter! It is a nightmare to clean up and remove.

 

[Old Philosopher]

FWIW, looking at your run, I would lay a couple of cheap OSB (4'x8') sheets across the top wired to the chain link. Lay some plastic sheeting over the top of the plywood. Hold everything down with 6-8 cinder blocks to prevent the wind from displacing it all. If you cover it like that, litter on the ground is probably not necessary. The chickens will figure out how to avoid the temporary mud holes. LOL. If you are really concerned about the birds getting muddy feet, and are semi-rich, you could lay down some rubber stall mats (like those used in horse stalls). They are a couple inches thick and the water will run off/through them.

 

[ClareDB]

Hey there everyone,
I have a questions regarding what type of outdoor floor bedding I should use for my specific location and setup that I have.

We now live in Layton Utah which is North of Salt Lake City. Currently renting so this setup is somewhat temporary. I have 4 hens in a 10x10 chain link dog kennel with a 36 sq.ft. (fits 5-6 chickens) Chicken Coop within it. The top of the dog kennel is currently covered with bird netting only and in the summer will cover it with a black shade mesh type tarp (not sure what it is called but we used it in the past to shade our puppies in Nebraska during the summer). Within the coop I am using Pine wood chips which is working out pretty good since cleaning doesn't take but 15 minutes.

The problem occurs outside the covered coop within the confines of the 10x10 kennel. As expected the chickens have killed the grass and now it is just soil. While there was snow and ice on the ground things weren't so bad but now that it has has melted away there is a nice mud mess. I can only image what this will be like once spring hits. Drainage doesn't seem to bad, there is one small shallow pit area that I can easily fill in to level out. The area is sloped so there wouldn't be standing water once those low areas are filled.

Weather in this area... Snow in the winter with bouts of dry warm weather that melts the snow. Spring is rainy and things tend to mud up. Summers are hot and dry (85-100).

Attached is a picture of what we got going on. The black tiles you see was just a quick easy idea to keep cold from blowing under the coop during some really cold nights. Those will be gone soon.

Oh forgot to mention that we do let them out each day for anywhere from 2 to 4 hours depending on what we got going on.

I have been reading about people raving about using sand and then I have heard others doing just fine with hay.

Question for you experts after seeing this setup. For the external uncovered area seen, would sand be a better option or hay? Which would be a better option to keep the flies and smell minimized? Any other advice is also welcome.

Thanks in advance!

View attachment 1662015

 

[ClareDB]

I like wood chips as a thick 10cm layer in the coop as they like to turn it over so the poop breaks down and isn’t so smelly. I’ve used sand but it’s not great it still gets quite wet and is heavier to clean out when you need to. I have also used wheat straw which is ok for a while but it too can get very wet. My pick is definitely wood chips, you can get them for free sometimes too.