Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[Sunshine]

We have an uncovered outside run which our 4 chickens are in all the time. It has limited shelter in the form of some fruit trees. (Therefore Hemcore etc are out of the question)

 

Anyway the flooring was originally grass but after a few months of having chickens in there and with all the rain it has turned all muddy so we were thinking what to put on the floor.

 

Straw cam up as an option-i've never heard anyone really talk about straw for outside. So was wondering what people thought?

 

The other option is woodchip or possibly gravel.

 

With gravel are chickens able to scratch around in it-i think its a good idea but not sure if they would like the texture or like scratching in it.

 

Any thoughts welcome

 

Thank You

 

Emma

[eggs]

Hi

 

I haven't tried straw but I think it would very quickly become a muddy mess. Also straw can easy hold spores and dust. Hope this helps. Can you cover your run?

[ValR]

I've just followed SteveR's suggestion and bought some B&Q hardwood chippings, which seem great. They don't get waterlogged, and the chooks seem to like them.

[Peachy77]

We had the same problem. We decided to put sand in the cube run. this seems to work great. They lovely digging/scratching in it, and the poo just seems to disepear. Think the sand dries it out and it just disintigrates. Sand was reccomenend by the poultry center we got one of our girls from.

[Sunshine]

Unfortunately we can't cover the run as there are fruit trees in the way. The end that the fruit trees are covering is also next to a wall so it doesn't get wet there but its where the cover from the trees isn't much.

 

I've never thought of that but it seems like an excellent idea. What sort of sand-builders sand?

 

Emma

[eggypeggy]

Our chooks are on gravel and they seem very happy on that, loads of scratching and pushing the gravel around.. always seem to have plenty of bugs to eat. The only problem being you can't really collect the poo, so it can build up in and around the gravel, we move our run around and clean the gravel when we can, removing some when neccessary.

 

I was also told about sand by poultry farm, it would have to be clean sand.. i.e. childrens play sand, horticultrual sand, Not builders sharp sand.

 

Good luck hope you find a suitable solution.

 

Vanessa

[sandyhas3chucks]

mine daily scratch out my square foot of gravel, by car port (read chicken run outside back door!!! )no hourly!!! always sweeping it back, going to put mesh over it and only uncover it on wet days for extra activity for them!

[Peachy77]

We were told play sand or white sand. we got some in b&q think it had been dried/put in the kiln and was white sand.

[The Dogmother]

Straw does get rather wet and manky, it has a nasty habit of appearing dry on the top layer, yet being mouldy and soggy underneath - hence it not being recommended for use in poultry housing or runs.

 

My run has some clear shower curtain covers to keep it dry in this monsoon weather and I have Aubiose straight onto the earth floor inside - it's lovely and dry, no wet stuff or pongs and the chooks love raking about in it.