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who told you that? *curious* most of our arenas have utility sand in them and nobody has fallen over yet.
I first heard about it when we put a sand box in our back yard for the kiddos...I believe from a parenting magazine warning against the use of "regular" sand. Then last year when I was putting sand in run, I was getting bags of "regular" sand. The HD worker asked what it is for...I said chickens...and he said "well then you definitely want to use Play Sand. The other kind should not be used around small animals or kids". There's even a warning posted above the regular/construction sand bags with a caution about the dust from it causing respiratory problems. I wonder if the reason most larger scale projects use the construction sand is becuase the play sand only comes in 50# bags?
from what I was told, the play sand has been milled to have "rounder" edges, thus I was told it was not suitable for grit for chickens
the construction sand is crushed rather than milled, so it has some "tooth" to bind together in cement and to provide more stability when it is used to "bed" a walkway .. also supposedly it drains better
my take on this, if you fluff it up or throw it around , especially if it's windy, you CAN get silica particles in your lungs (don't breathe through your mouth, dummy !
)
however, what I got was the construction sand == partly because the play sand had been stored outdoors and was wet INSIDE the bag, and partly because I wanted the chickens to be able to utilize it as grit
in use, at least in the coop, it doesn't get fluffed up and scattered that much, it's a heavier sand and lies flat, the chickens walking on it, seem to smooth it into a nice even layer (I have only about an inch deep of sand, that's good enough for the coop anyway)
