What do y’all use on the run floor? Why?

[paintedChix]

Also, when you put horse pellets in the coop to soak up water from all the rain, after it’s all absorbed do you shovel it all out? I currently have hemp on the floor of the coop and I thought it was taking too long to dry up so I added some pellets.

Can you post pictures of your set up?

Agree w/ AART. Shouldn't be water puddling inside the coop.

Yes, if inside of coop is wet, add wet bedding to the run.

 

[paintedChix]

This may be a silly question, but is there any reason not to regularly throw weeds in the covered run from the garden? My grass in there is getting so sad and brown, and I have no shortage of weeds. Should I just put big piles in there whenever I weed? Is there any reason not to do this? My chicks are only 10 weeks old. Their food is kept inside the coop so I don't know if this will discourage them from eating the full amount of feed they need?
If tons of weed piles are fine then my chickens will be so happy I think I took them some today and they loved sifting through it.

It also depends on the size of your run & # of chicks you have. @ 10 weeks old, they are learning & can certainly work on it.

The wood chips will work great, that you mentioned in another post (I tried "quote" & deleted my post, so addressing separately).

If you plan on doing a lot of Composting, you can get the compost hot by layering material in a ring in their run. Build it up. Fill the ring (think it needs to be about 3x3 or 3' high & 3-4' around... when full, remove ring & let chickens fully tear it apart & refill the ring... if you get temp to 160°f, it will kill weed seeds.

You can check out -

Geoff Lawton - chicken compost
system
Geoff Lawton- chicken tractor on steriods

Edible Acres - Chickens 152 videos
Edible Acres - Chicken Compost Design. 27 videos

both above have pretty large set ups, but I've been able to apply parts of their designs to my own set up.

These two homesteaders use the ring system -

Perma Pastures - chicken tractor on steriods. 19 videos. He has a lot more playlists w/ chickens & composting. I havent watched them all yet...

The Holler Homestead - unfortunately, he doesnt have the chicken compost ones separate. They got chickens & show 1st composting in Season 4 - the 1st year, but not sure which one (2020)... He may have more current, that was how I found their channel...

If you are using your own wood chips, might consider tube rings to put garden weeds in. But these don't have enough mass to get hot enough to kill weed seeds.

Chicken Food tower

Edited to add - the chicken Food Tower is a link to a thread here on BYC. Great ideas & really neat to follow & see how they are updating it.