Wrong sand in the run! Help!

[Farmgirl1878]

If it were me, I’d add a bunch of natural, washed, coarse grain river sand from my local quarry on top of the finer stuff - just so your Flockers get some coarse grains mixed in. They’ll mix everything up with their scratching and dust bathing, so it’s all good! Oh yeah, and I’d also “have my head examined!” Glad you’re okay.

Here’s what our sand looks like:

We have nasty clay soil, so hubby just dug down six inches or so, built a frame of 2” by 12” boards, put it all together and filled it with the sand. Now it stays dry and loose all year long. The roof is metal, except for the last eight feet. That’s covered with a reinforced tarp supported by a pvc frame that’s like a half circle.

I leave the tarp up all year but remove the plastic siding. Works well to keep everything nice and dry.

 

[Finznfowl]

Very nice! I'm gonna get some course stuff tomorrow to mix in with what I've got. Thanks for the reply.

 

[Chicnbones]

Ive had a bad day! First thing this morning I busted my head on the corner of my chickens nesting box! I saw stars! So I did some reading a while back when I first got my chickens and read that sand in a chicken run must be construction sand... well fast forward to this crappy day, it's been raining nonstop for two weeks, I've had to pull up half my plants in the garden and throw them away... the chicken coop is a mess, and there's an old pile of sand in the back yard. So I throw a couple wheel Barrows full of sand in the coop. I sit down and start to relax and it dawned on me that the sand I used isn't the right kind! It's not powdery play sand but its definitely not the medium course construction sand. It's fairly fine and almost like it has some clay mixed in. I'm beginning to think I've got a concussion, I can't believe I did this! What should I do??? Theres no way I can get it all out so should I just leave it and hope for the best? I did sprinkle some gravel around on top but I doubt that will do much good. Help please!

Aww I’m yep! That’s a sucky day… take a deep breath and say there’s no emergency here , one day at a time. Do what you can and just start removing it. Once it is removed you can redo it and restore to brand new! get your eggs in a row and add appropriate sand ( river not silica). You and your chickens will have happier days ahead. Hope your noggin feels better soon