Melissa67137
Songster
I have 4 hens and a 12ft × 12ft run. The actual coop is 4ft × 2ft with a nesting box off one side. I just cleaned it out before reading this post. I just rake it out into the run, which also has pine shavings in it. I do this because the area my chicken run and coop is in has turned into a low spot so when it rains it almost floods there. It never did that before I put the chicken run there but now it does. Another chicken keeper in the area suggested I get pine shavings to help absorb some of the moisture and the chicken poop....I also put grass clippings, veggies, and fruit in there for the chickens....the hens also scatter their dust bath dirt all over the run also....then the chickens scratch through it all, all day which in turn makes their whole run kind of a compost pile. I have only used 3 or 4 bags of pine shavings or flakes in 18 months. Because they spend most of their time in the run and not the coop, I have very little to clean out of the coop, so normally just scoop the poop out into the run and only clean the shavings out every 6 months or so. For now this works for me.......and there doesn't seem to be a any deep build up of matter so far, maybe 3 inches across the whole run floor......later on I may need a better solution until then I will keep doing what I am doing.