What's in the bottom of your coop?

[ddcoyne]

My husband asked me to please ask everyone what they liked for the bottom of their coops/runs. Pea gravel or regular gravel? Or something else?

 

[NevadaRon]

My coop has wheat straw in it, about 3-4 inches deep. My run has nothing in it, other than the straw left from the alfalfa that I feed them every few days. But my soil is pretty sandy. That makes the run easy to keep clean - just rake out the leftover straw every so often to the compost heap.

 

[Tat2d]

Pine straw in my coop, a few inches deep. Nothing in the run except grass but eventually will be pine straw also. I just go rake it from the woods when its cleaning time.

 

[Moabite]

There is about 3-8 inches of pine shavings/saw dust on OSB flooring in the coop, straw in the nest boxes, and river sand in the run. It has been this way for nearly a year now and is super easy and haven't had any troubles. I replaced all the bedding and sand about 5 weeks ago and put it in the compost pile, it turned black nearly as soon as it got wet and is teaming with big juicy earth worms now and is in the garden waiting for Mother's day to be planted with the best garden I've ever grown yet. Can you tell how exited I am?

 

[swimmer]

Pine shavings by us. Do deep litter and clean out twice a year. When I first read about deep litter, I thought it was going to be gross, but love it. Doesn't smell at all.

 

[MissJenny]

I have just cleaned out a winter's worth of pine shavings, so now I have about 2 inches of fresh pine shavings in the coop. In the run I have gravel. Mud, if you ask me, is stinky. Gravel cuts down on the stinky about a hundred fold.

Jenny

 

[FirstLady]

layer of topsoil, covered with ag lime, covered with 6" of sand.

 

[Yay Chicks!]

Pine shavings in the coop.
Dried leaves in the run. I have a big, old sweet gum and I keep adding the dried leaves to the run. The girls play in the leaves and stomp them into dirt. It's a nice, neat and clean way to get them to make compost.

 

[catchthewind]

We don't have our coop/run quite done yet, but plan to use pine shaving (deep litter) in the coop and once they've eaten the grass in the run (which may take a while, since the plan is they'll be pastured or free-ranging and the run won't be used much), we'll use sand in it. I'm intrigued by the leaves idea too. We have tons of maple and oak trees around. No shortage of leaves...

 

[Celtic Chick]

Pine shavings, inside & out. Sometimes mix in some straw. Then it gets used to mulch the gardens.