Muddy wet run, winter is here! What can I put down to keep it as fresh as possible?

[Titsalinabumsquash]

My girls are in an Eglu with a large extended run, it's on what was a grassy patch, it's not grassy anymore obviously, I can't move them around the garden but I do provide a lot of variety for them to scratch around in and green/bug to eat as well as corn and regular pellets.

We had an almighty storm last night and the pen is like a swamp this morning, they're huddled in huge run looking sorry for themselves.

Is there anything I can out down to give them a bit of drainage or something a bit more absorbent than bare earth?

They do have a cover over the run but the one around the run is the problem.

I'm thinking of the easiest solution to keep them as comfy as possible over the winter.

Can't see your OP - there's a glitch on MN at the moment. But posting this will make your OP appear.

Sorry, I'm on The ap, I wasn't aware.

I basically need to know what's best to put in the chickens run now it's raining heavily every day, they're on bare wart atm and it's turned to a swamp!

No worries, it was just to give your thread a push-start!

There's a thread in Site Stuff about this www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2202863-something-MOST-PECULIAR-is-happening-to-some-newly-started-threads after a few of us, me included, made complete arses of ourselves when the glitch first started last night.

The best thing to do is sort this out before the ground turns swampy, as I discovered last year.

They need dry areas to stand on otherwise they can get bumblefoot. I have put some small wooden decking tiles in the coop now covered in poo, food container is off the ground anyway and the water containers are on a concrete slab.

I did it too late last year but they have lots of beach pebbles and natural slate in the run. I also have put a roof on one end of the run and they have perches to stand on.

I have also chucked a load of straw down when it's been really, really wet - it just gives them something to play with but it looks yucky pretty quickly (and disappears into the ground within a few days!)

They do have a cover over the run but the one around the run is the problem.

Sorry I'm a bit confused. Do you mean there is a covered roof but the sides of the run are open?

Our run is roofed over but the sides are also partially covered in so there is some protection from driving rain. Last year we used a thick layer of wood chippings to stop the ground getting too muddy and slippery. It wasn't perfect because we just had so much rain but it was fairly successful.
You don't really want anything absorbent as it will just act like a big soggy sponge and the chooks will be standing in wet all the time. We found the wood chips let the water through but the top stayed pretty dry as long as they were deep. We had to top them up a few times as they do sort of sink in eventually. I'd put down a layer of ground sanitiser to freshen things up and then clean chips on top.

This year we have a cement floor as we started to have a rat problem due to a disused factory being demolished nearby. We've put the chips on top for scratching around in and will have to wait and see what the drainage is like. So far it's looking good, big storm last night and the run only damp around the edges.

Sorry I should have explained better.

They're in an Eglu with a standard run plus 1m extension,p. The eglu run is covered by one of the omelette tarpaulin things.

The whole eglu and run is penned off to stop DS going and harassing them several times a day, they have free run of the pen but I shut them in the run at night and they put themselves or bed in the pod bit of huge eglu when it gets dark.

The whole thing is on bare earth, it did have wood chips but it stank so I took them out. They love it when it's dry because we have excellent soil from an old compost heap that used to be there and there is lots of bugs and they like the fine, soft earth the dust bath in.
The covered bit under the run isn't too bad usually but the rain has been really heavy and the ground is water logged.

Any chance of letting them free range for at least a bit every day?

I can't in the whole garden (the garden is small and has lots of places they can escape!

Their pen is big though and I am forever putting in grass clippings, live bugs (brought from a pet shop) veg scraps and other toys to keep them amused (cabbages on strings and frozen water with berrys in when it's hot)

I might try a thick later of gravel to give it some drainage. I check their feet and general well being every week and I'm always out there chatting to them and watching them, they all have coloured leg rings so I can tell them apart easily and spot if they become unhappy.

They have plenty of fresh nesting materials and they lay fairly consistently.

Ah right, so there's a sort of outer fenced off part and that's the bit that's waterlogged. Sounds tricky as you don't want to ruin their dustbath area for when it's dry. How about some duckboards? You could move them around to the wettest bit and in the summer you could take them up. Or you can get those roll-out paths that you see in gardening catalogues for stopping your lawn getting all muddy when it's wet. Would something like that help?

Our run part actually floods like a pond but it disappears quickly as it drains well and is on a slight slope.
Could you create an artificial slope perhaps?

They sound like spoilt rotten happy chooks

We put our run on paving slabs with a thick layer of hardwood chips. The hardwood chips need changing every 4-6m but it gives them something to scratch around in.

I have a cube with 3m run. It is roofed with clear corrugated plastic sheets held on by bungee cords. When the weather gets worse, I protect areas on the sides with clear plastic shower curtains/ plastic decorators' tarpaulin also held on by bungee cords. This works well.

One side is against a fence, so it has protection from the wind.

I have hardwood bark chips down to provide something for them to furtle through.

Don't mention the solar powered fairy lights ...

You could also try the eglu forum, they have plenty of ideas and photos of set ups.

Ha ! I have fairy lights in my run too!

I use deep bark chippings and dig out roughly every 6 months. They're currently on slightly sloped paving slabs under the chippings. I've got a few daytime perches so they can huddle (they could go in but they appear to like perching and keeping an eye on everything). I've also got some big tree stumps for them to perch on.

I had a big pen and more birds in a previous house. The pen got quite boggy at one stage and i had quite a bit of success improving drainage by forking the ground - digging the prongs to full depth, wiggling a bit to make decent sized holes then filling the holes with a generous amount of builders sand. I repeated approx every 30 cm. Doing that, then putting bark over the top could help significantly and with drainage the chippings should become smelly.

I've also used straw when I needed to create a dry path to access the nest box and its a good to have in for sudden wet weather like now kind of thing.