Sand for runs

Sue

Sue

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I think I touched on this subject a while ago, but need to re think what I use for my inside run! I thought I was doing the right thing and went over everything at the time that could be used and chose what I thought was the best. Having had weeks of very wet weather I am now not so sure! I have hardwood chips in my covered run and despite putting up clear corrugated sheeting on the whole of two sides and the bottom half of the third side, the woodchip still gets saturated when the rain is blown in. I also find that when I pick up the droppings that I lose quite a lot of wood chip with this also. It worked very well during the dry, summer months, but I am now at the point where I need to think about replacing it as there isn't much left now. I don't know whether to replace it with more hardwood chips or whether to try something else. I can't use the rubber chippings as the droppings go into our recycling compost bin. The base of the run is concrete slabs and I was wondering what your opinion would be of using play sand. It would be easy to pick up droppings without losing very much of the sand with it, it would dry quickly and would be free draining and it wouldn't produce moult when wet. It would also be soft on the birds feet and they could dust bath in it as well. I can't think of any negatives at the moment from a health point of view for the birds, unless anyone else can point any out to me that they can think of. It's about the same price and the hardwood chip so that isn't a consideration. Comments gratefullly received.
 
Hi Sue, play sand was recommended to me by my local poultry supplier, I looked into it at the time and most of the forum posts about it were positive. The main negative that seemed to come up was that it was a pain to remove when you have to change it every 6 months.
 
We use kiln dried sand for chick rearing and seive the poos out. After a while it stinks and has to be replaced. Few bags of that and the dustbin is too heavy to move, so a whole run would be a problem. Perhaps you could collect the poos in a seive, let the excess sand run away then every 6 months flood it with water to wash it out. Problem is when wet it is difficult to dry and they can't bath in it when it's wet.
 
i use sharp sand in mine and rake it over once a week otherwise it compacts and dig it up about every six months and dig it in to my veggie patch.
 
sand does sound like a good idea and i have thought of that as well , i decided to put down weed supress membrane with wood chips { from tree surgeon} on top and some areas are so soaked that i am wandering if that was a good idea i think the area is only about 2 1/2 metres by 4 metres and only about 1 inch deep now as i also seem to pick out more chips when poo picking ,thankfully i havent done the whole run like it i think it would of been so much more worse then waht it is now unless your birds can live in a big barn then the mud issue will never get sorted .
 
I'm probably asking a stupid question here, but why do you have to change it every 6 months? If it's kept relatively clean by regular picking up and Stalosan or equivalent used regularly, why would it need to be changed so often? When you answer this question please bear in mind that I am still a relative novice compared with most of you!!!!!
 
I've tried sand a couple of times as an experiment but found it not to be much help if exposed to wet as it's surprising how much water it absorbes which turns it into yellow mud. It can only drain if whatever is underneath allows it to drain and in my case the clay under makes an uncontrollable mess.
 
chuck really glad you posted that as I was watching this post wondering about putting down sand. My initial concern was it would end up a muddy mess and as I also have heavy clay soil you have just answered my question.
 
i have been thinking about this all morning at work i have plenty of slabs and i might be able to get my hands on some more that are a couple of plots down from me they were the base for a shed if i can have them i might just make squares out of slabs and put them over the areas that get the most muddy and just leave the rest soil now my tree has been trimmed right back more sun gets into the run so i feel maybe its just best to grin and bare the mud .
 
The floor of runs gets messy in two ways - 1) from below, ie the birds scratch soil into whatever covering is used on the run. The only way to prevent this is to instal a good membrane. I've found the woven kind to be more effective at drainage than the non-woven, though you do need to either hem the cut edges before use, or allow plenty to tuck in at the edges, to avoid fraying. Membranes do seem to improve with use, once they've been trodden in a bit, but of course they do need reasonable drainage underneath, just as bare soil would, to allow water to seep away. For this reason, slabs aren't always a brilliant solution because they restrict drainage, and also the muck collects between the cracks and is impossible to remove.

and 2) From above, from the hens' poo. Even if you can pick up regularly, some of the poo will disintegrate before you get to it, washed in by rain, or walked on or scratched in by the birds' feet. Consequently, the run flooring gradually becomes contaminated until it needs removal and replacement. Depending on the concentration of birds in the run, the type of flooring and the amount of poo picking, this may be needed any time from 3 months onwards. Then you have to dig it out and somehow dispose of the nasty mess. Some types of litter can be composted, but I don't know how one would cope with dirty wet sand, and this would also be extremely heavy to move.

Which of course, brings us back to rubber chippings. Yes, you do need regular poo picking, just like any other kind of flooring. Also I find you need to have 2 poo buckets, one for intact poos which go straight on the compost heap, (along with the newspaper parcel of droppings from the coop overnight) and one for contaminated chippings, which go into a bucket of water to soak and then every few days, when I've got half a bucketful, I hose them clean through a large garden sieve and replace them in the run. This takes only a few minutes and provides good liquid fertiliser for the garden. The chippings are never muddy, always suppport the hens' feet above the membrane so they never get wet or cold, and since the chippings are non-absorbent they are always free draining and pleasant to walk on. And, properly maintained, they never need replacing. I occasionally hose them down in the run itself and then spray with Poultry Shield to keep everything nice and clean and disinfected, but most of the time the targeted wash of dirty chippings does the job.
 
collecting and washing down the rubber chips is a brillant idea makes me wander wether i should get some :D
 
Marigold do you get your chippings from a local supplier, or is there somewhere online you can order them? I like the idea of them and the half of the garden that is penned off for the girls is turning into a quagmire - the sooner I can do something about it, the better!
 
I got mine from http://www.chickenkeeper.co.uk/shop/mud-management.php which is based near me in Hampshire. I found them very helpful, delivery was quick and the bags the chippings came in weren't too big for even a wimp like me to move. (You don't get a pile deposited on your drive, though if you can find somewhere via Google that does this it might be cheaper.) I think you need to be careful that you are getting good quality chippings, as I gather some people have had issues with bits of meteal in them, but the ones from Mud Management were fine. Being minced-up car tyres, the chippings are all odd shapes and sizes, from about 1cm each way up to about 4cm by 2cm. but they all settle nicely, you can rake them level when they get kicked up as the hens enjoy digging in them.
 
i know they last but to do my whole run which is 33ft by 25ft yikssssssssssssssss pricey even to do a little area is a lot of money i need to think about it :-)05
 
I've thought about rubber chips but am worried that if they are shredded steel ply tyres won't they have very sharp bits of wire sticking out of them?
 
i have checked quite a few sites and most say 99% wire free , just to do my little area i have wood barked would cost me about £40 plus{ the bantams can stay on wood bark } i am tempted but thats a lot of money at the mo and i doubt i could get just 4 bags delievered ,loked on ebay but that was way out of my price range its differcult as you dont know what to do for the best ?
 
Hi Karminski. Afraid 1% with wire sticking out of it could do a lot of damage when they are scratching about. They will shift 100's of pieces in a day of scratching. It is high tensile wire in tyres so it doesn't bend when it it stood on.
 
maybe it better to just use limited woodchips and replace that when need be for £7 a bag if i had to get it from homebase as i drive near there every day , we can get a wagon load of the tree surgeon for £20 but thats a lot of woodchips and we only got those loads once or twice a year and they are shared between 4 people .i did find on banQ site that they do membrane for under £10 5m by 2m sheets and not the 1 metre you normally get .
 
chrismahon said:
I've thought about rubber chips but am worried that if they are shredded steel ply tyres won't they have very sharp bits of wire sticking out of them?
Click to expand...

Mine have been down for over 2 years now and they are entirely 100% safe. No wire at all has come to light - and I do examine them regularly in the course of cleaning them! But as I said, you need to check where they come from and get some specifically for livestock.
Yes they are more expensive initially but remember you only have to buy them once if you look after them. They are the best option for me as I haven't got a strong enough back to dig out heavy loads of woodchip, sand etc and replace with new. Also the rubber chippings never go mouldy like woodchip can. Because I'm asthmatic this is an advantage bothto me and the chickens as there are no spores to inhale when the chippings are disturbed. Spores from decaying woodchip are well known to be harmful, not only for people with chest complaints.
 
if i was to get some then i would only get them from somewhere that was recommended like from the place you get yours from , i may phone them next week and see whats the smallest amount of bags they will deleiver and after feb or march { buying another car } then i may consider getting some for trail during the summer but i'll only do a small area just in case i dont get on with them what is tempting me is when you say you leave them in water to clean them and then reuse :-)17 :-)17 you cant do that with woodchip .when my tree was cut down the tree surgeons left me all the chippings but within 48 hrs the mould was out of control and there was no way they were going anywhere near the girls .
 
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