What do you put under a chicken coop on concrete?
Your coops will sit flush against the concrete floor. However, if there are any gaps between your coop and the concrete pad, you will need to fill them with sturdy material. Check out the section below on using a rubberized roof coat material as a floor liner.
Do chickens like concrete floors?
Most chicken keepers who have concrete love their concrete. Concrete is a very safe flooring choice as it keeps burrowing predators out. After the initial installation, concrete is low maintenance, does not rot like wood floors, and can take plenty of abuse without consequence. One of the nicest things about concrete is how easy it is to clean.
What are the best materials for chicken coop floors?
So what materials are best for chicken coop floors? Several different flooring materials are suitable for chicken coops, including concrete, plywood, and linoleum. Good chicken coop flooring is safe, predator- and rodent-proof, durable, and easy to clean. Flooring materials vary widely in quality, cost, maintenance needs, and safety.
Does concrete keep rats out of chicken coops?
In the love letter above from Erica to her concrete chicken coop floors, she says she loves that the concrete keeps the rats out of her coop. However, be aware that in some areas, even if rats can’t get into your coop, they may burrow underneath your concrete slab and nest there.
Can you put chickens on concrete?
Most chicken keepers who have concrete love their concrete. Concrete is a very safe flooring choice as it keeps burrowing predators out. After the initial installation, concrete is low maintenance, does not rot like wood floors, and can take plenty of abuse without consequence.
What is the best surface to keep chickens on?
Concrete is the ideal surface for a permanent chicken coop. It provides a heavy, solid barrier that prevents predators from digging their way into the coop. Concrete is also easy to clean with a hose and water.
What do you put on a chicken coop concrete floor?
What To Put On The Floor Of A Chicken Coop? You can put wood shavings, wood pellets, straw, shredded newspaper, and even sand on the floor of a chicken coop. Whatever chicken bedding your choose, remember that it's vital for comfort, added insulation, and odor control.
Should a chicken coop have a dirt floor?
Not all chicken coops need floors, particularly those that use the deep litter method, have soil that drains well, and are well-designed to keep out predators. However, many coops without floors allow easy access for rodents and burrowing predators, are difficult to clean, and add too much moisture to the coop.
What do you put down on the ground of a chicken run?
In general, the best ground cover for a chicken run is anything that keeps the ground dry, safe, and comfortable for chickens while also being easy to clean as needed. Bedding material, sand, solid floors, and landscape mulches are popular options for running floors alone or used together.
Do chickens need grass in their run?
In short, no, you don't need grass in a chicken run area and if you do place a run onto grass it will quickly get destroyed through constant scratching, leaving behind bare soil or dirt.
Where is the best place to put a chicken coop?
It's a good idea to put the coop somewhere where it is partially shaded, and partially in the sun. This means your chickens can beat the heat when it's getting a bit toasty, as well as bask in the sunlight when they want to catch some rays.
Do chickens poop everywhere?
So, if you have chickens or a chicken, you have probably noticed something that happens quite regularly and quite often. Chickens poop, they poop a lot and they poop everywhere. They poop enough to probably make you wonder how many chickens you have…and whether some have joined the flock without you knowing it!
How often should you clean a chicken coop?
How often you should be cleaning a chicken coop? You should provide fresh food and fresh water every day, and you should clean the bedding out once a week or once a month(the deeper the bedding layer the less often you have to clean it out). It's best practice to do a total clean-out at least twice a year.
What is the best thing to put in the bottom of a chicken coop?
What Do You Use on the Floor of the Coop? For the deep litter method, use pine shavings or hemp bedding as your bottom layer since they are small pieces and compost fairly quickly. Pine shavings are inexpensive and available online or at your local feed store in bales.
Do chickens need hay in their coop?
Hay or grass clippings are NOT an ideal chicken coop bedding. The main reason is that they are high in nitrogen, so they can't provide a good carbon/nitrogen mix in the coop that fosters beneficial bacteria and composting.
How far should a chicken coop be from a house?
While many communities don't address chicken housing, those that do have widely varying requirements. Typically such laws will specify that chickens must be housed some distance from residences, as few as 10 feet or as many as 150 feet.
What type of bedding is best for chickens?
Medium- to coarse-grained sand is the best chicken coop bedding as it's non-toxic, dries quickly, stays clean, is low in pathogens, and has low levels of dust. Sand is a much safer choice than all other bedding materials.
What bedding do you use for chickens?
By far the most commonly used litter is wood shavings, sold in feed stores, or scrounged from woodworkers. Wood shavings have a pleasant smell, are amazingly absorbent, and don't pack down. Sawdust also works well but is dusty. Chickens stir it up and dust settles on anything in the coop.
Are wood chips good for chicken Run?
Wood chippings are the perfect sustainable, environmentally friendly surface for your chicken run, and give your chickens and poultry the perfect floor covering to peck and scratch at, plus they help stop the build up of mud, especially if you use them to create a path around the coop too.
Are wood chips OK for chickens?
They're used in both brooders and chicken coops. They're loved for their absorbency, cheap cost, insulating properties, and composting ease. Pine shavings are touted as safe for chickens' health, and many packages even have pictures of chickens on them.
Obstacles with keeping hens on concrete
Probably the biggest concern when keeping your hens on a concert surface is the drainage issue, we personally have had to deal with this problem a great deal so know the ins and outs of drainage pretty well.
Some scenarios where we believe it would work
There are no two ways about it, concrete flooring is suited better to different environments. For example, we had a coop the corner of our garden, shortly after getting the hens we, unfortunately, discovered there were some serious issues with the drainage in the ground under the run and coop.
How to keep your hens on concrete
When looking to keep your hens on concrete, there are a few different things we’d recommend doing.
Some great alternatives
In our opinion wood chipping is the best material to use as a run floor, it absorbs the wet, helps with draining, and minimises bad smells. Finding an alternative substance that does all this may be difficult.
Conclusion
All in all, having a concrete flooring should be avoided if possible, it’ll increase your work as well as be difficult to clean, it’s a far safer option to stick with mud, however, we found using woodchopping’s the best of the lot.