wood bark and chicken

[4pigs]

Hello

We have 4 hens and an Eglu in the garden. The Eglu is within a small fenced paddock area but it gets rather wet and muddy. During the recent heavy rain it had large pools of water. This is not very pleasant for the hens and we are wondering what we can do to help the situation. It seems that we need to raise the areas (but not to then cause a problem elsewhere).

Standard wood bark seems to promote itself by retaining moisture - so it didn't really make sense to me... However the wood bark for in childrens play areas costs a bit more but I understand it will absorb water.

Please could we have your thoughts as we dont want to buy the wrong thing and want things to be nice for our girls.

Thank you

Jo

[wendy]

Bark chippings isn't good for chickens as it harbours mould spores.
I put wood chippings down in my run, just done it today actually.
Wendy

[4pigs]

Thanks Wendy - this is what we needed to know. Sorry to sound stupid but are wood chippings the same a sawdust? We have a saw mill nearby....
We have more chicken questions - can you tell me if i am on the correct page as I have noticed another one which also seems to relate to chicken. It is so good to know there are people like youself that can help a novice and share an interest.

Jo

[wendy]

You would be better asking your chook questions in chicken keeping thread.But you are OK for the moment.
Wood chippings are different from sawdust. The are literally trees that have been roughly chipped into half to one inch pieces. I am not sure if some put sawdust down. But I think it could get into a muddy mess, if your run is wet. We get approx 25kg for £3.50 and use about 4/5 bags in our 40ft plus run.
I use sawdust at the bottom of my house/coop. But it is the course cut as the other stuff is again a little too fine and will upset the chickens air sacs with the dust, as does mould.
Wendy

[4pigs]

Thats brilliant. We will go and get some wood chippings. Thanks again. Jo

[BlackRocks]

There is the rubber chippings alternative too. Here is a link to the lady I got my hens from who sells them if you are interested.
http://www.chickenkeeper.co.uk/shop/80- ... pings.html

[redd_angel55]

We've also had a mud problem in the recent rain. We've got clay soil and the rain water just sat on the surface for ages. It made it very difficult to to keep the run clean, no matter what we had in there. Smelly mess!
I've now slabbed the entire run, which is bliss, not just from the cleaning point of view, but it also keeps the hens safe from foxes

[cluckyclaire]

We have very heavy clay soil and the main run can often resemble a bog! The chooks (and ducks) also have access to a couple of acres of field which is fine. In the run we have attempted ti help the situation by putting down a number of wooden pallets as walk ways in the run - mainly for us to be able to get around but the birds often use them as well when it gets bad!!!!