Washing sand for run- is it necessary??

[Opa]

Quote:
There is absolutely no reason to wash sand for your birds. Any sand you get will not have anything in it that is harmful to your birds. Sand is not sold with any chemicals applied to inhibit weed growth; landscapers often spray the sand, after it's installed, with a weed killer like Roundup. I think that you may have heard the term "washed gravel" and there in lies the confusion. Washed gravel is mere gravel that is sorted by size using a screening process that utilizes water.

 

[Tikkijane]

Quote:
Sorry, but even coarse sand is way too fine to serve as grit. What is sold as poultry grit is composed of granite chips which have rough, irregular edges, perfect for what chickens need grit to accomplish for them. Sometimes road bed sand will have gravel mixed into it and there may be some gravel bits that are rough enough and suitablly sized, but honestly, poultry grit is really cheap and a five pound bag lasts forever. Why not just buy some poultry grit and then you know your chickens will be getting what they need?

I used bagged, all purpose sand for my runs. In my opinion, play sand is too fine textured.

That's what we're doing now. Popular opinion seems to say if you can find river sand (that has the gravel in it) it's fine for grit. Plus, there won't be any shortage out in the yard, so they will have what they need, even if we mix it in....

 

[Tikkijane]

Quote:
There is absolutely no reason to wash sand for your birds. Any sand you get will not have anything in it that is harmful to your birds. Sand is not sold with any chemicals applied to inhibit weed growth; landscapers often spray the sand, after it's installed, with a weed killer like Roundup. I think that you may have heard the term "washed gravel" and there in lies the confusion. Washed gravel is mere gravel that is sorted by size using a screening process that utilizes water.

Nope it was washing the sand, mentioned numerous times. Will have to see if I can find the threads....

But at least now I'm feeling better about not having to wash it, lol. Will have to ask about the road base mix...

 

[SmokinChick]

Quote:
There is absolutely no reason to wash sand for your birds. Any sand you get will not have anything in it that is harmful to your birds. Sand is not sold with any chemicals applied to inhibit weed growth; landscapers often spray the sand, after it's installed, with a weed killer like Roundup. I think that you may have heard the term "washed gravel" and there in lies the confusion. Washed gravel is mere gravel that is sorted by size using a screening process that utilizes water.

x2

 

[Laffo]

"Washed Sand" referred to in the posts, I've just been reading all the sand topics, is sand sorted by grain size, by water. The process does remove organics as well as grade the size. They do the same thing with gravel.
It is sometimes called washed sand or wash sand.
Laffo.

 

[Rouen]

Only time I've heard of washing sand was to remove the silt when using it in an aquarium. I dont think chickens care about silt though.

 

[capebird]

Regarding "washed sand".... I remember reading a thread about the use of
sand. It was a lengthy thread with a lot of posts. I think the name of the
original post was "Got Sand... you should"... or something like that. The thread
was all about the virtues of using sand in the coop/run. There were
a number of posts that suggested the type of sand to use was "washed river sand".
I'm not sure what river sand is... I went to a couple of landscaping yards here looking for
it and no one knew what river sand was. I bought some sand from a local concrete
yard that was fairly coarse. I "washed" it through a screen to get the fine silt out...
and I'm giving that a try. If anyone knows what "river sand" is.... I'd like to know.
Thanks