Sarah B Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 Hi all - again! So many questions - so little time My hens have an Eglu and standard run on lawn which we move about every 2 or 3 days. When we move it we are left with the previous lawn patch full of poo, tossed pellets, general chicken bits etc and sometimes brown and dead grass The weather has been awful and the ground gets wet and apart from removing a few poos with the trowel and taking away the remains I can pick up it just looks awful? I'm guessing if the weather was dryer we could maybe use the garden 'hoover' and suck the debris up but we can't do that at the moment. What does everyone else do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eyren Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 To be honest I think you have to have a pretty big lawn in order to move the eglu around as per the website's claims. AFAIK, the vast majority of people here have their eglu in a permanent location, either on wood chips or slabs+bedding, or in a walk-in run of some kind. Much neater, and you can still let the girls out to free range on your lawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah B Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 Yep I'm starting to think you are right. As I'm not here in the day I want them to have lawn though as it's fairer in a small run for variety, if they were on concrete with bark or aubiose what can they forage for? I do feel Omlet are slighty misleading in their online lawn vids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane 20 Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 We got our eglu last June and managed to keep the lawn reasonable throughout the summer but in the wet winter it has not been so easy and the lawn is rather muddy now this, and a visit from Mr Fox made us decide to build a walk in run...which is nearly finished Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarah B Posted March 19, 2008 Author Share Posted March 19, 2008 We got our eglu last June and managed to keep the lawn reasonable throughout the summer but in the wet winter it has not been so easy and the lawn is rather muddy now this, and a visit from Mr Fox made us decide to build a walk in run...which is nearly finished So what do you think re the run principle? I mean my hens dont get much time to free range maybe a few hours at the weekend, are you building your run on a patch of lawn or ex lawn lol or concrete with bedding? I don't know what to do. I mean surely once they have been used to foraging on lawn it would be cruel to put them on concrete slabs with bark or aubiose? Or am I just being stupid as they are chickens - I'm in a real dilemma here Jane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane 20 Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 Yes i understand we had the same problem- we put slabs around the outside (to stop Mr Fox) and left soil in the middle (it could just as easily be grass) with rubber matting with holes in, on top stop the hens scratching too far down,we also hoped that some bugs etc might get through to keep the chickens more interested. We would rather they could stay on the lawn but it really wasn't practical. We will let them free range at weekends. At least with a walk in run thay get more room than the eglu which is especially good in the winter when there is not much chance to free range. Hope this helps . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TAJ Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I just use a garden rake to get up the poo, etc after the hens on the grass. Though I have to admit after last weekend (floods down in Gloucestershire yet again) I have moved the run on to the pation, with wood chips and hemcore and only used the grass for fre-ranging this week and it looks a lot better. Tracy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ain't Nobody Here Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I have mine on a soil & hemcore run with slabs either side. I like the fact that they can scratch about in the soil and find beasties . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phosphorus Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 We are constructing our run (well DH is ) this Friday. Have decided on slabs with hemcore on top as the soil is clay. Having dug it last Sunday in the rain, DH decided it would be a mud bath in bad weather. I'm happy they will be okay as long as they have hemcore on top of the slabs. I am going to let them out for a few hours at weekends but they will mainly be in the run, at least until this weather cheers up a bit. Andrea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DW Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 I have my eglu on wood chippings, but also give the chooks access to the area under the trampoline (which is pretty well wrecked, anyway), plus a bit of the lawn, which changes periodically. I manage this by having poultry netting cable-tied round the legs of the trampoline, plus a flexible 'loop' of the netting around the required lawn area. The link between the eglu run and the trampoline is achieved by my patented hinged chicken bridge - which is too complicated to explain in text......I really must take some piccies and post them, to show what I mean! The whole arrangement is fairly fox-resistant, as I've held the bottom of the netting down with loads of 10" tent pegs. I've considered electrifying the netting, but have a feeling that it might not be good for any children playing on the trampoline....... D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted March 19, 2008 Share Posted March 19, 2008 When I had just one Eglu I managed to move it every couple of days and the lawn survived....in fact, the scratching did a wonderful job of de-thatching and the poo fertilised it so the grass was lush and green. Two Eglus and 4 more hens was too much for the lawn though so I put them all on slabs. They scratch and hunt for bugs in the Aubiose.....and love rootling through it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwichick Posted March 20, 2008 Share Posted March 20, 2008 I've only had my chooks for 6 weeks but we started on the lawn too. While they were confined to the run they did a pretty good job of scratching the grass up and to be honest I wasn't concerned about it. I was more concerned about the poo so whenever I moved the Eglu I raked up the solid ones and washed away the sticky ones... even if it was raining. Once I started letting them free range more (like all day) their run stayed pretty clean while the rest of the backyard has droppings all over it, especially the patio and the teak dining set I do a daily (sometimes twice ) poo collection as I hate flies and I'm worried we'll be inundated with them if I don't. This past weekend I surrendered one of my garden beds, covered it with wood chips and moved the eglu there. This weekend I'll be making a netting fence to confine them to that corner while still letting them out of the run. Then in the evenings I'll let them out and they can have the run of the place until bedtime. They do like to scratch around in the wood chips and I throw some of their food in there too to keep them busy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...