Sooo much pooping

[Banus]

Hi all,

 

Well Valentine and Nando arrived on 30th June and on the 24th July Valentine produced her first egg – well looking at it I think she borrowed it from an Ostrich to impress us! Egg No2 arrived this morning which was more of a normal size.

 

Now I’m looking for ideas as we have a dilemma. We have an Eglu Go with the 1 meter extension – 3m in total and quite enough for 2 small chickens. Even though we let them out to free range they’ve completely trashed their run, and after less than a month there’s hardly a blade of grass left for them to peck at. It no longer looks like it does in my avatar!

 

So, the question is, what do you use in your run when all the grass has gone? I’ve considered co"Ooops, word censored!" wood chippings which is recommended and easy to maintain. The only problem with wood chippings is that it’s totally bland and there’s nothing for them to peck at. We thought about emptying the mower grass box into the run but thought that might be messy and might be too many greens for them to munch on?

 

Any thoughts / ideas would be gratefully received.

[Omletina Kyckling]

Woodchippings are good. Don't tip grass clippings in as they can be quite long and can get stuck in your hens crops, leading to sour crop/blockages. When hens eat grass, they only just peck off tiny bits from the end as a rule.

[johnandkymberley]

Hi, woodchippings/pebbles/stones are okay but they need clearing out often as they can get very smelly, ours are kept on slabs and bare ground. Although they free range mostly anyway but we had woodchippings and they go so smelly so quickly, then we decided on stones and they did the same and then we decided nothing as that was the most natural way and its been fine

[Patricia W]

Cover the run and use aubiose or similar. Lasts for ages and they love digging in it

[gongladosh]

So, the question is, what do you use in your run when all the grass has gone?

 

Hens LOOOOVE to scratch around!

[Banus]

Yep - can't argue with that. Got to get my head around what might not look too pretty to us humans is heaven to our chicks!