what ground covering do you use? being given lots of conflicting advice!

[gatleygirl]

we are having a stafford laying house 9 on 15" legs in a 10' by 5' covered area under our willow tree (so dry, leaves and weeds on the floor, quite stony etc). What sort of flooring should we use /do you use (on the floor of the run not the house !)? Chicken man says straw type stuff or shavings as easier to clean out, others have said paving and / wood chippings - getting confused!

Any help would be great as chickens coming in 2 weeks!

the reasoning behind the paving thing, as far as i understand it, is that ground gets 'fowl sick' after a while, and needs to be rested away from chickens to recover, as well as allowing the chickens fresh ground so they dont get sick/parasited to death too. so if a run or grazing area is to be used permanently, rather than periodically and moved, then paving or concrete allows you to put anything you like down (hemcore, bark, straw, shavings, whatever) and periodically sweep the whole lot out, compost it, hose down the base and replace stuff.

it is fairly expensive to do initially, but a good idea in the long run if a site is permanent. rats cant get through it either, nor can foxes dig under it etc.

i dont have paving or concrete atm, but i currently move the houses and runs about weekly to find fresh ground and its a pita tbh.

i also use straw as nest box bedding... and apparently it is a lice/mite haven so im dusting it with powder every time i change it atm and wont buy again.

I use aubiose, but on soil, I do not have paving down, i clean it out every couple of months. (obviously I tale the poo out more often).

My husband recently supplied some equipment to a large, well respected poultry farm in Norfolk (they really do have a good reputation for care of their birds). They use soft wood shavings (by the truck load in large plastic sacks) and I think he said they are changed every 4 weeks?

myalias - do you mean the shavings were on slabs or on dirt? sorry to be a bother!

i think at a large farmn they wouldn't poo pick every couple of days though, just scrape and chuck every month, i poo pick at least every other day to keep it clean. You can use garden lime or something to keep the ground fresh underneath when you change he bedding i think.

quite frankly, i think im being honest with myself to admit upfront that i am not going to be arsed to keep up an alternating daily routine of poo picking.
i mean...no.
its just not going to happen.

Horse bedding which contains citroneela disolves the poo. Bliss and Easibed are both excellent.

I use Easibed Plus because it was recommended to me on here. It looks like little chips of wood. I have it spread over paving slbs. It's fab.

I rake mine about once a week, just to freshen it up. One bag has covered my 10ft by 5 ft run but it's inches deep and I could have got away with three quarters of a bag really.

I'm leaving it down for another month and then I'll sweep it out, hose down and relay fresh.

The girls do scatter it around, so if you can boarder off your area to contain it a bit, it would help.

citronella dissolves poo - really must check spelling before pressing that damned Post Message button

We have slabs with easibed on the top. Is fantastic - easy to clean, compost the easibed, hose down the slabs. No problems with vermin/parasites, and keeps them fairly dry. Easibed needs changing about every 4-6 weeks.

dh makes hay whilst the sun shines to make some cosy spaces for the (4) hens in winter, we use the sawdust from the old whiskey barrels that we get for fire wood, underneath the hens' perch, smells nice initially... we change it as and when needed, more than weekly but not every day!

and it was tortoiseshell who recommended Easibed to me in the first place!

Sorry for slow reply. Concrete floor underneath the wood shavings. I suppose that is the only option when running a large operation.

Our chicken supplier was horrified by the idea of slabs ,something about bumblefoot?!