which woodchips??

[porsmork]

My run is getting muddy, my girls are looking a little scraggy. I want to get some woodchips for their run, but not sure where to get them from. Can anyone send me a link? I am worried about buying soft wood ones rather than the hardwood ones.

Online ones come to so much money with delivery, that I poor in a sack of ones intended for vivariums that I buy in the local pet shop!

I use anything that horses have in their stables - Aubiose, Max bed, burly bed, easy chick, go to a gore supplies place and it is cheap too.

I have saw dust for inside the coop. But what about for the external run?

I've used max bed, hemcore and aubiose and they are all good. I use a local pet (mostly horsey/farm type supplies) and they deliver free in my local area in NE Scotland. I normally use them inside my Go Up coop but they are also working brilliantly in the shed my ladies are in for the duration of the bird flu restrictions. Your external run should be covered at the moment due to the restrictions so unless you get run off water it should be fine right now. No personal experience of using in an uncovered open run.

I'm hearing that the restrictions are to continue until end Feb

Could you put a pallet or something in the run which you can rotate around to let the earth rest a bit? It would also provide a non muddy perch. Put some garden trays with gravel in for a less muddy scratch? It's hard when a run gets all muddy.

I like hem core but can't get it locally to me - gore should have been horse in my earlier post!

Our chickens are on these at the moment, they hose down quite well at the end of the day too. We ordered 10 bags and they turned up on a pallet a few days later!

www.bark-uk.co.uk/chicken-run-hardwood-chips/chicken-run-wood-chips.html

Thanks everyone! I'll use some of the bark chips on that link, and have a think about a more permanent solution in the spring.

I just found out that Hemcore went into administration. I've just bought some aubiose and equi dry to put down first to kill the smell and keep it sanitised.

It's generally advised against using bark chips as they harbour a fungus of which spores can be damaging to the chickens respiratory systems

Update: I've spent the past few days (while toddler naps!) digging in a proper raised bed, with mesh below and easichick chips around the eglu. Chickens seem really happy rootling about in it, and a bit of hen-pecking that was going on (causing one of my bantams a bald neck at the back) has stopped. Looks really neat and much easier to care for than just on grass.