Best chicken run beddings | What to use and what NOT to use 

Great! Thanks for sharing this!

So you don't have to worry about bedding at all then - it's already there for you! :)

Thank you! Where are you at in Europe? Lots of gorgeous places there too! But you're right, I do think larger tracts of land are likely easier to find here and probably lower cost, simply due to the lower population.

@@thefeatherbrain I am located in Hungary! (really small country in EU standards even :D) we have some really beautiful locations here as well, but we are a country with mostly plains and not mountains, so I am always fascinated by huge mountains to be honest :))

Thanks for sharing that!

What do you do to build a sandbox litter style under coop?

@@juliemarr65 we set it up where we built a tray under the roosting bar. Plywood bottom with 1x4 to frame it and attached legs to sit it on and filled with sand. The roosting bar sits about a foot above it… and they poop and I scoop everything up in the morning… we got dry sand, course sand, from Lowe’s… it’s been a life saver. We use Beck’s corn cob bedding and never ever will we use pine. Corn cob is organic and composts well… no smell and low low dust. Plus, when we built the new tray sand box, we have around three feet of empty space under to build a brooder or when we introduce any new chickens to the coop, they’ll all live together. It’s like a dinner table style… imagine it like that. Hope this helps.

Yes! Great point! I actually prefer mixing beddings. Every bedding has its downsides, but I find when you mix them, the downsides get downplayed.

@@thefeatherbrain Thank you!

Yes! You're good at this. :) I've found the chickens love when you alternate bedding. They get really excited about anything new, so when you switch the bedding up, they act like it's Christmas, even if it's a bedding they've experienced many times in the past...I guess it's like how some parents alternate toys in and out of play for their kids. A toy feels new when a kid hasn't seen it for 6 months. :)

@@thefeatherbrain Great. Thank you.

I'm going to try to throw some video clips together for you to illustrate, but I asked my husband this morning and he said he didn't dig down at all. He built up from the level ground instead of digging into it. The idea was to make the run higher than the surrounding area so it drains better - although not sure you get much precipitation where you're at so that might not be as big of an issue. Here's what he did: 1. He leveled a large area in the hillside (actually, our road work guys leveled the area for us when they were building our road last summer - you can see the whole level spot in my videos was cut from the hillside). 2. He laid out a perimeter of pressure treated boards (he says if he'd had more time, he would have laid out TWO layers of pressure treated boards but we were up against the clock, short on boards, and town is an hour away). 3. He cut/laid out the rows of hardware cloth and zip tied them together (overlapping). 4.He stapled the cloth to the perimeter board. 5. He built the walls of the run on top of the hardware cloth to sandwich the hardware cloth (between the perimeter board and the base of the wall). 6. He added a thick layer of gravel and then a thick layer of sand for drainage and also so the chickens weren't scratching straight on the wire. Working on throwing some clips together to illustrate these steps, but may not be done until tomorrow. Hope this helps! Best, Bri

Put a video together for you - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OFvpFbhk_Es.html Hope it's not too late to help! Best, Bri

@@thefeatherbrain ty sooo much for sharing! Sorry for the delay in responding I had to travel out of town for a week! This is super helpful and what you provided above makes sense & will help a lot! Look forward to seeing you again on here! Absolutely love you and appreciate the education!! ❤️🙏🇺🇸🌻🐓🐣🐔🐥

I prefer straw over hay simply because hay tends to have more moisture and is therefore more conducive to mold growth. I know some keepers have made it work with hay though.

Couple of ideas - do you have leaves? Maybe not where you are in Arizona, but if you have leaves on your property (and neighbors' properties), you can bag those in the fall and use them over the fall/winter. That's what I'm planning on doing this year. You could also check on Facebook Marketplace for different bedding types - leaves, straw (but make sure NO pesticides or chemicals were used), etc. Sometimes you can find things for free or ultra cheap (always be wary, though - I do worry about molds and things, not knowing the history of the bedding). You can also get large compressed bales of straw at some farm stores for considerably cheaper than bagged bedding, or you may have farms nearby that will sell in bulk (again, ask about pesticides/chemicals). Another viewer told me that she has a local farm store she goes to that will give her bedding for super cheap when the bags have been slightly ripped. You also could just block off a smaller part of your yard. Build a 1-2 foot containment wall out of stacked cement blocks or wood to hold the bedding in that smaller area. That could be an affordable alternative to trying to bed your large yard.

@@thefeatherbrain thank you great suggestions!

I haven't added much to the website lately, but hope to soon. I do still see comments. Do you mean the wall-roof gap? We left that open during the winter. That was the only ventilation our hens had in the coop at night. We built the roosting bars to be low enough that any draft that went through the gap would be above their heads. The gap was also protected by the roof so no precipitation got in. If you wanted to close the gap, you could just nail a board over it - although that might not look pretty.

I have found sand to be a huge asset in my coop, but that's because we get really cold winters here. The first year I had chickens, I had organic bedding (wood shavings) in the coop and it was awful. Because it doesn't dry poop the way sand does and it's constantly breaking down and releasing gases, I had to have a huge amount of ventilation in the coop to prevent ammonia buildup. That's fine when your climate is warm - in fact, that ventilation is welcome by all. But in a cold climate, it means the coop is just as cold as the outdoors and the chickens really suffer. With sand, my coop barely needs any ventilation and stays much warmer. I do actually remove the poop from my sand bedding weekly and add it to the compost pile, so I don't feel it's wasted. I only replace the sand bedding in my coop every 3 years or so which means low maintenance. And I actually do think that sand is a natural material for chickens. You do find it in the wild where chickens live and forage, but I totally get your point. Organic bedding makes much more sense for your goals, climate, and circumstances. Organic bedding is also nature for chickens. And your chickens seem happy in it, so perfect fit all around!

@thefeatherbrain technically I have sand both in my coop and run, it's all pretty much steel reinforced block and concrete lol

@@MosaicHomestead Lol!!!