really old style living?

mardatha

I thought of bark or wood chips yes. My run would be on a slope, I dont have any problems with drainage cos am on the side of a hill lol !

zarazara

re hens, when you go to the agricultural merchants for layers pellets look out for other money saving stuff. for example today I bought 25kg of food grade salt [the crystal stuff you put in a salt grinder, or in the dishwasher as a softener] for £7.50. increadably cheap and enough salt for my breadmaking and fish and chips to see me out I should think! also a sack of lovely carrots for £2. I envisage carrot cake ,carrot soup and carrots with everything this week..............................................

zarazara

mardatha wrote: »

I thought of bark or wood chips yes. My run would be on a slope, I dont have any problems with drainage cos am on the side of a hill lol !

at a previous house we put cow matting under our hen house and in the run and the odd paving stone for their claws. the cow matting is rubber about half inch thick and is 4ft x 8ft. it is good as it relatively warm and gives them a different surface to walk on. weput wood chip down too and just let them scratch it about.

flea72

mardatha wrote: »

I thought of bark or wood chips yes. My run would be on a slope, I dont have any problems with drainage cos am on the side of a hill lol !

drainage isnt the problem. its the build up of wee and poo in the ground, that then gets wet (over winter it just doesnt get chance to dry out). it turns to a quagmire very quickly, as the earth will already be quite soft due to the excrement, and the way the chickens dig in the ground

most people worry that their chicken runs might smell in the summer due to the heat and litter, but we find the smell is stronger in the winter, as you cant get in and turn the earth so easily

F

mardatha

I cant do slabs, we are old and not fit, OH had 3 heart attacks and I have ME, so hauling bloody great slabs around is out of the question. What about gravel? Does that upset them? I can do bark or wood chippings though.

ginnyknit

I have to agree with flea72 the smelly ground is awful. I used a thick layer of fresh bark chips given to us by local fishery after they cut down some tree's and it worked well. You can always scrape the old chips up and renew every so often. Its a learning curve and you will soon work out whats best for your site. The good points far outweigh the problems as chickens are wonderful and you will learn about their characters very quickly.

zarazara

Mardatha,if you go for paving slabs and/or cowmats then probably a good idea to get someone to put them in situ for you :-) if you use gravel you will have an awful job trying to clean the chicken run out. another idea is to lay a thick bed of woodbark over the grass but bear in mind that although this will drain it will at somepoint need clearing out and re-newing ao you may have to get someone in to do that if physical work is an issue. Is there a gardener or somesuch locally who could sort this out for you?

[Deleted User]

mardatha wrote: »

It was black rocks I was going for but looking out at the bit of garden where they will go, it seems so wild and windswept. I suppose I could plant a windbreak but then that might keep the sun off them as well... it isnt a cosy wee cottage back garden by any stretch of the imagination, you know ?

we had black rocks and they are lovely birds but ours were always broody so we didn`t get many eggs, then we would find hidden stashes of eggs under bushes and we would have to throw them away not knowing how old they were. It was no good trying to confine them either to get rid of the broodiness as they were broody almost all the time

[Deleted User]

mardatha, I agree with the concrete base too. The poo gets very smelly and they end up paddling in their own faeces. We used to hose ours down once a week and then put horse shavings on top. They do like a sand bath as well. Def not gravel

concrete was the easiest to manage in their run when They weren`t loose in the garden

HariboJunkie

kittie wrote: »

we had black rocks and they are lovely birds but ours were always broody so we didn`t get many eggs, then we would find hidden stashes of eggs under bushes and we would have to throw them away not knowing how old they were. It was no good trying to confine them either to get rid of the broodiness as they were broody almost all the time

Oh that's a shame. Despite free ranging all day every day ours have only ever laid in their nesting boxes. It would drive me nuts if I had to hunt for eggs. And only one of them has ever been broody and that was just for two days and then she got bored. :rotfl: