The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: langdon on March 25, 2010, 09:04:53 pm
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im thinking of covering the chicken run with gravel and chippings,
as with all the rain the place is so mucky, grass will never have a chance to grow back with all the
scratching through the mud.
surely chucks can survive on a different surface.
what do you guys think.
p.s. we dont have enough room to keep rotating a run, goats have their patch of the land and the
pigs have theirs.
the chuck run is massive, it runs from width of a acre to the next.
app any comments
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I tried Type 1 hardcore - too sharp and they tippy toed over it. I tried sharp sand but that got waterlogged, I've put duck boards down the middle now and the old straw from their hen house gets spread over the sand and boards so at least I can walk on it to collect the eggs.
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Mine have bark & loose garden stoned, in the water logged part,
but mine are lucky to have a ten acre field and woodyish part to roam, so they still have grass
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does putting the boards just down the middle leave the reat of the groung all mud, i guess so.
i need to cover the whole area, im even thinking of putting down some membrane to prevent
the gravel getting lost in all the mud.
i wish there could be a simpler solution but i cant see one 8)
again any comments are app :chook:
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we have quite a big back garden which when i mow i would chuck in the
cuttings and through the summer i hope to be taken on gardening work so
more cuttings for the chucks
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I suppose the membrane would help but if it's a big area that's a lot of money to spend out. My run is 12 feet wide by 36 feet long so I just have the boards up the middle, but the straw soaks up the wet on the rest of it anyway. I thought it might smell but to be honest it smelt worse before I started using the straw and it's really hardly noticeable at all.
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If there's a lot of grass cuttings they'll go slimy and slippy.