chickens on concrete?

[pregnantpause]

I have a.friend giving away some chooks and a coop and would love to have them for him- but ny garden for the most part is concrete. Is it feasable or indeed fair to keep chickens without a bit of grass/dirt for them to run about in?
There's plenty of room for them, and I'd give them plenty of straw and hay to make up for it (please tell me I can have my much wanted chicks)

Thank you for your advice in advance

I have seen chickens kept primarily on concrete, although they also had intermittent access to grass. The concrete did need to be hosed down - scrubbed with a stiff broom almost daily though.

You'll need to provide them, however, with material to peck in (bark, straw etc.), and also a dustbathe - essentially some soil dust that is kept out of the rain (normally they will create one for themselves in the flowerbed).

In short, yes, it's feasible, but you will have to be a little inventive / more proactive about it!

We have our run on concrete slabs. We use hardwood woodchips several inches deep over the top for the chickens to scratch around in. We also have a dustbath (mud and sand in a cat litter tray) for them. We tend to change the woodchip every three months or so.

Thereinmadness- do the woodchips not smell? Our local park give woodchip away for free so that would be a nice option, but as they'll be occupying our main way in and out I an prepared to clean them daily (sweeping and hosing) to avoid smell. The park give bark mulch- would that be okay as a dust bath mixed with sand?

you need to consider a lot things. how near are your nearest neighbours. will they be affected by noise. are there any cockerels to crow and disturb your neighbours. what are you going to do with the chooks when you go away and would it be reasonable to expect said chook sitter to clean them out everyday as you are thinking of doing. Chickens love to scratch about and dig. they love dust baths and i understand from other posters that this can be done but personally i am just not so sure about it. sorry not what you wanted to hear but i am trying to be honest.

I don't have close neighbors so that's not a concern, and there are no cockerels just four hens. If I secured the land around my direct garden I could give them more room to scratch in the dirt but I know this area is fox heavy and I wouldn't be able to take my eyes off them for a second.
My dh has anxiety issues so we don't ever 'go away' as such, a weekend at most so not a problem. But I do think I'll have to look into ways to make sure I can keep them well before jumping in and taking them.
Thanks for being honest though- your right to make sire its well thought out- people do tend to romanticize these things (hence ny friend giving away his- no foresight of the work involve)

Is it possible to dig up some of the concrete?

An electric fence will help re fox.

You could grow grass in litter trays and exchange them regularly.

Are they full size or bantams?

We also netted above the garden to discharge BoP and other wild birds from food nabbing.

Leaving them overnight so sat am to sun eve in a secure pen is no problem.

We have recently moved our bantams from veg garden to kitchen garden because of building work and we removed the Tarmac and lined the pen area with concrete gravel boards inside the edge and secured them in place with some concrete and then fastened the coop to brackets set into the upright gravel boards and bought in soil and bark for the new pen, they also have access to grass when we are home.