Poorly chicken

[majorbloodnock]

The walk in run is nearing completion, so now we have to choose what to put down on the floor. It’s straight onto earth, so is purely for helping combat muddiness and helping compost the poo.

One thing we do have is a surfeit of hedges and I wonder if the clippings, once shredded, would be suitable. I know bark mulch is to be avoided, but don’t know about shredded hedge.

Thoughts, anyone?

[mullethunter]

Is the run covered?

[majorbloodnock]

It’s not right now, but will be shortly; tarpaulin on top of raised beams.

[The Dogmother]

3 hours ago, majorbloodnock said:

It’s not right now, but will be shortly; tarpaulin on top of raised beams.

Just a tip... if you want your run to be secure from predators, it would be best to have weldmesh under the roof covering.

[majorbloodnock]

The run is chicken wire rather than weld mesh - cost of the latter was getting prohibitive - and the plan is for the roof to be the same and then covered with tarpaulin. In addition, weld mesh skirt to stop opportunistic digging and 8 lines of electric fence rope to stop foxes getting close enough to either try their luck against the mesh or to try climbing.

I won’t say it’ll be impregnable, but it’ll take some seriously bad luck for something to get past all that.

[mullethunter]

OK. Not sure about shredded hedge. The reason bark isn’t recommended is that it can go mouldy, and I’m not sure if hedge clippings would be the same? 

In terms of the amount of mess - if the run stays completely dry you’ll probably be ok with whatever you put down - but the chooks will dig up the earth and mix it in.

If however rain can get in then in the winter I suspect you’ll just end up with a muddy mess no matter what you use.

If it was me - as long as it’s easy to get in and out - I’d try the hedge clippings but be ready to skip it all back out if it goes nasty.

[majorbloodnock]

I imagine you’re right. I don’t care about mess, but don’t want the girls constantly in mud and suffering as a result. Rain will be able to fet in from the sides, but that’ll only affect the edges so they’ll have a perfectly dry centre to keep their feet healthy; this is not my first walk in run, so I’ve seen how it all works over time.

To be frank, if there’s no real need to put some kind of floor covering down, I’m just as happy to dispense with it altogether and just clear out the pooey earth periodically. I just put floor covering down in the last run I built and assume I’ll need to do the same again; is that correct?

[Cat tails]

I don’t have anything in my run, but earth. Did dig in slabs to keep them from digging out, but the worms do the rest.

 

[Grandmashazzie]

Major if you still in process of setting up I would try and pick up some paving slabs, you can often find them on gumtree as freebies from someone who wants rid of them. I had an outer rim to stop fox digging in and nothing in middle for dust bathing and then discovered rats were tunnelling in . So ended up completely paving with earth on top and left some drainage cracks for when rain blows in from side. We used corrugated plastic screwed onto roof as in heavy wind the tarpaulin would take off.

[majorbloodnock]

5 minutes ago, Grandmashazzie said:

Major if you still in process of setting up I would try and pick up some paving slabs, you can often find them on gumtree as freebies from someone who wants rid of them. I had an outer rim to stop fox digging in and nothing in middle for dust bathing and then discovered rats were tunnelling in . So ended up completely paving with earth on top and left some drainage cracks for when rain blows in from side. We used corrugated plastic screwed onto roof as in heavy wind the tarpaulin would take off.

Thanks, GS.

I did think about paving slabs - we have plenty around that we've dug up from other parts of the garden, and that could be repurposed - but eventually decide against it.

• Firstly, I wanted the girls to be able to have plenty of soil to move around so they could find stuff, have dust baths and generally be chickens. I had a floor in the last walk in run I built (in our last house) and the worms, roots and general soil fauna and flora never seemed to get through particularly successfully either, so the chickens had a harder time discovering interesting stuff.
• Secondly, my experience with walk in runs is that rats will get in anyway whatever measures I put in (and I've seen plenty of tunnels under various large slabbed areas I've pulled up in my time), so the only way to control is by the absence of food for the rats to get - we have a treadle feeder to help and the bulk of the pellets are kept in our house in a metal bin - combined with occasional visits from the pest control professionals if we see evidence of significant numbers of rats.
• Thirdly, the run is about 15 square metres and an irregular shape, so trying to get all that covered with no gaps looked to me to be unlikely to be satisfactory.

Don't get me wrong; I've seen a lot of walk in runs that have been paved, with very happy inhabitants too. I'm just not sure it suits this particular instance.

As for the roof, I have some pretty sturdy timbers to create an apex and rafters, and the run is in a relatively sheltered spot. As a result, the tarpaulins will be lashed down tight to form a skin that won't significantly flap, and so will stay put. I've also ordered pretty heavy weight tarpaulins so I can put them under a fair bit of tension without worrying they'll tear. My reasoning there was that the last time I used corrugated plastic it started to go brittle reasonably quickly and, in the same time, I'll be able to just unfasten the tarpaulins and replace them as necessary at about half the price. I may well be proved wrong - it has happened plenty of times before - but in that case I can just revert to plan B of replacing the tarpaulins with correx or similar corrugated panels and be no worse off. We'll see, and of course I'll be reporting back on both the successes and failures of my theories.

[Patricia W]

I have my covered WIR on Thames clay with aubiose.    It’s like cement!    I have slabs around the external  perimeter and half slabs around the inside perimeter.   Stops tunnelling by unwanted guests.   The aubiose is magic.  Only replace it about every 6 months.   Composts beautifully so not a drop wasted.  Use ground sanitising powder weekly 

[mullethunter]

Given all you’ve said I’d just try it with no floor then as long as you have a skirt to stop foxes getting in. If it doesn’t work out you can always have a rethink.

[majorbloodnock]

1 hour ago, mullethunter said:

Given all you’ve said I’d just try it with no floor then as long as you have a skirt to stop foxes getting in. If it doesn’t work out you can always have a rethink.

I think you’re right. I’d been getting too hung up about which flooring to think of plain earth, but it makes plenty of sense.