wood mulch for a run/coop?

[fishboy1]

I can get free "mulch" from the city. Basically its ground up trees and brush that is picked up and taken to the county chipper facility.
It can range from solid poker chip sized bits to shredded stringy pieces depending on who is running the chipper.

Would this be ok for the coop/run? coop is inside the barn and the run is simply a 20x10 caged in area outside and exposed to the elements.

Should I put a layer of sand down first in the run or would a good 6" layer of mulch suffice ? It gets muddy when it rains and we have clay soil.

The run is 1/2 finished but I could still get the loader in there with a scoop full of sand before I put the end wall and wire mesh roof on.

THanks!

 

[GhostRider65]

I wouldn't use mulch at all it's too hard to keep clean, we tried it in our dog kennel run and it was awful to rake out pooh much larger in size than chickens could possible poo.
Also if your run wet and you have clay I would use sand, it will help drainage and it's a snap to rake our litter. Kim

 

[HighNDryFarm]

I would use the mulch. My run is a little larger then yours but not much and the ground has gotten really hard, even though my chickens free range during most days, so I'm going to add mulch to ground and let it break down and soften the ground. But I don't pick clean it. It's a large enough area to naturally break down. I don't use it on the floor of the coop, just the run.

 

[patandchickens]

If you have a serious mud problem, just sand and mulch may well not be enough to solve it long-term, indeed use of the mulch (tree chippings) may eventually make it worse. Take a look at my "fixing a muddy run" page, link in .sig below, with suggestions for a multi-pronged approach to dealing with mud (really works best to tackle water diversion, not *just* adding material to run) and the pros and cons of different materials such as mulch or sand. I don't know what to recommend for your particular situation b/c i don't know how fixable the water-input problem is, or *how* wet your run is, or *how* clayey, or whether removal of well-composted mulch in a year or two will be an option; but that should give you most of the info you need to make a sensible decision for yourself.

Note that the sand will NOT remain underneath the tree chippings, it will fairly soon mix all together with them; it will also tend to disappear into your mud without lasting long-term effect if it was added when the ground was muddy as opposed to dry.

GOod luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[fishboy1]

Thanks for the input gang.

The ground is hard as a rock in dry weather and that side of the barn gets about 1-2" deep and squishy with mud after a prolonged rain. I just added a gutter on that side of the barn to divert rain water to a catchment system to feed an auto watering system I am building for the chickens so that should help.

There is rock about 3-6" down under the dirt. Fractured Slabs like a white pages phone book on top and solid bedrock underneath that. It was a real joy pounding holes in the rock deep enough for the corner posts for the run.

Im thinking I will try the mulch and see how it goes. Worst case I can get a truck load of sand delivered and carefully pour a couple bucket loads through the top screen into the run. The run is on the East side of the barn and most of our storms come from the west or a derivative thereof.

Ill have to do a little water diversion from the south side of the barn. A couple tractor scoops of dirt made into a berm should prevent any surface water from draining into the run.

Im thinking that I may add a bit of tin roofing to one end of the run if I can score some free material somewhere. That should keep one end dry so the chickens can stay out of the mud.