Building A Chicken House – Keeping Dry
Ok, so your gorgeous and comfy coop is now an icky, sticky, stinky mess !
Not Good!
There is plenty of good advice around for those that are thinking about building a chicken house, but what about anyone who has built and is now floundering around in the muck?
(Oh, and how much trouble are you getting for traipsing chicken mud all through the house?)
It’s OK help is here. There is a quick temporary solution.
If you have used wood chips, straw, hay or any other organic material clean this out as best you can and then put in a whole heap of fresh stuff. I mean lots and lots – Much of the damp will be coming from the surrounding ground so you want enough to raise the height of the run floor to keep your hens away from the wet.
The two important points here are;
- When it starts getting wet again – clean it out and repeat.
- This is only a temporary solution and in summer you will have to do something more permanent – like lay down free draining inorganic material like sand.
DO NOT put sand or shingle down on even remotely wet ground.
The Summer Solution.
Once the rain has stopped and the ground has dried out you can begin to think about preparing for next winter.
Have a think, where was most of the mud? Was it just around the doorways and high traffic areas? Then it is entirely feasible to put down paving stones in these areas.
- If a large run has been affected you will need to clean the whole lot out and lay down a free draining material like a sand/shingle mix. Again, do not do this until the ground is completely dry or you will lose it.
- You can cover your run to prevent the rain getting the surface wet.
- If the problem is a location one then you can also build the height of the run floor up by putting retaining boards around the base of the coop fence and building the floor up with your sand/shingle mix so that it is above the height of the surrounding land.
Fortunately there are a great selection of plans for when you want to start building a chicken house that contain all the essentials and give you easy peasy step by step instructions. This makes building a chicken house a breeze – In fact I bet it even makes your neighbors jealous and your eggs taste better!
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