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[nin-chicken]

Hello, I haven't been on here for a while as all has been running fairly smoothly.... but now I need some advice about my run please!

I currently have sharp sand over a membrane which has worked well but there is one area which has got VERY smelly so I've removed all the stinky stuff right down to the membrane and am now thinking of changing over to hardwood chips. Should I remove all the sand first or would it be ok to put the wood chips on top? I'm also wondering whether wood chips are better on bare earth or on the membrane? Flyte so fancy seem to favour bare earth whereas newlands poultry use a membrane...

I would love some advice as I really want to get this right!

thank you x

[Beantree]

I thought membrane was simply to stop the weeds coming up Nin. It may also restrict the effect of worms mixing soil with the chips though? If you have a membrane I'd leave it there as it will stop the chickens digging down to earth and will make the chips very much easier to take out and replace when necessary. You need to provide a dry soil bath area as well, which can just be 4 wood sides laid onto the membrane and filled with sieved soil.

[mollyripkim]

I have my wood chip on a porous membrane (which sits on top of plastic pallets) so the water can drain through. It seems to work very well.