Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[Pottage]

Sorry, another question.

 

My girls have a run that is aubiose on top of bare soil. They have a dust bath I've made with compost and diatrom but never use it, prefering instead to bury themselves in the aubiose/soil mixture that they have created by raking around.

 

My only problem with this is that they are also mixing their poop in with the soil/aubiose mix and are subsequently bathing themselves in that too which is a bit gross.

 

I pick up as much of their poo as I can find when I get home in the evening, but know I am not getting it all because there never seems to be that much in the run compared to the parcels they leave me EVERY 5 minutes when they are free ranging! The poo gets mixed in with the dried soil and it is almost impossibly to tell what is poo covered in soil, or just a lump of soil.

 

When they dust bathe in it they get it absolutly everwhere, and often have black dust all round their nostrils from the soil.

 

Can anyone tell me what the health implications of this might be, or should I not worry? I plan to completly remove all the aubiose every 3/4 weeks. I was going to leave it and use the deep litter method but cant be sure I am getting all the poo now so don't think thats such a good idea. They are being wormed at the moment, they are pretty badly infested, so the poos that they are doing in the run are not the healthiest to begin with.

 

Thank you so much for all the help you've given me so far, you guys are actually pretty amazing!

[Chickabee]

Mine do exactly the same. I use bio dry, which is a ground disinfectant. Mine have been doing this for 4 years, no bad side effects yet

[Lavenders_Blue]

My girls do exactly the same - they have a lovely purpose-made dustbath which they completely ignore in favour of dust bathing in the wood chippings on the run floor. I don't poo pick as it would be completely impossible to find it all (as you are finding!). You can use powder disinfectants such as Biodri (as mentioned by Chickabee) or Stalosan F. I don't use it too often, but worming is a good time to use it as it zaps worm eggs as well as disinfecting.

[Chickabee]

I don't use it too often either Lavenfers blue, but I do worm about every 4 months