Wet Run, low area, need your thoughts for my idea.

[SmiYa0126]

My run floor is 6 inches below grade on the slope side and is dry even in the monsoon rains we get sometimes. It took a lot of trial , error and hard work but you can make it happen.
I did a lot of digging in the rain. The best time was the first time when I was digging a trench through the run as the girls "helped" and drank the icky water creek we made.

Mmm, delicious mud water

 

[paintedChix]

Can you post pics for us to see your current set up? So much easier to give advice.

I am in NC too. Hate the sand on our property. Pretty sure it was heavily mono cropped & sprayed. At 1st, in 2015, not even bugs or worms. When it rained, the smell was bad enough to make people physically ill & dogs would come in w/ that "stink", too, in their coats. I used chicken coop/runs w/ DLM & as litter built up, would pitch it out around the coops. Ponies fed round bales & manure/soiled hay left to fertilize rather then cleaned up. Lost too many birds to free range, so tractors used to allow chickens to scratch & fertilize.

Some coops in back yard area, on the property when purchased, would flood. We built them up w/ DLM & that fixed the flooding & standing water issues during heavy rainfall...when didn't have enough DLM, I had pallets I could lay in temporarily for chickens to be up & out of water. Then, removed & knew where had to put deeper DLM. I have lots of pics of DLM, but no pics of when I used the pallets.

In both 2016 & 2018 we had significant flooding w/ water running across the property. I have added some ditching & swales/berms to direct water around the 60' round pony training pen. When they fill (or when we run water into it), it now makes fruit trees & ducks happy. I put a 16' wide duck pen around part of the outside of the training pen (so far) - 2 Peach trees & 2 pear trees in it w/ ducks. Not even close to being done, but it helps.

Slow building by myself, working full time. Always interesting to see where water goes...

 

[Backyardgardening]

You helped me with my butterball gender determination. I would like to provide an answer for rainy muddy runs and coops. I used to live in the PNW (Portland area) and it rains nonstop for like 7 months. I searched the internet for muddy run help and I was going to attempt straw. As I was trying to check out my straw at TSC, a worker (chicken lover) stopped me and told me to put it back and get horse pellets. Horse pellet bedding is amazing for mud. You throw it down and it explodes into saw dust when it gets wet but keeps the area dry. for a few years in Portland when the rainy season would hit I would switch from the shavings to the pellet and then switch back. You have to be careful of storage if you don’t use the whole bag because it still does the whole transformation into saw dust when it’s wet and you only want that to happen in the run/coop. Also, for our rainy season I just went ahead and put a tarp up and zip tied it but it doesn’t look like your area will have that problem.

Additionally, I recommend reaching out to other people from the PNW area or search Google for tips from Portland or Seattle. They recommended utilizing rocks and these are effective as well for areas for drainage. There’s a lot of good info on this strategy.

I know this is like several months later than your post but maybe it’ll help in the spring to keep the mud out.

 

[SchwartzLakeFarmNC]

We concluded that our lot is pretty much flat with a slight slope, so there is no way to improve it just due to the size and location of property lines in the city limits. Our best option was to raise a portion of the run which we did, about 8 inches and placed a super heavy duty tarp over decking boards that we used to raise and added construction sand. When heavy rains come, our sand stays dry and the other areas get the water but the girls have plenty of room to roam around without their swimsuits