I take the top layer of straw off every week and turn the rest. Will this work for my run? One more thingyou may even want to consider buying twice as much sand as you need to fill your coop. The ammonia in my coop got to a high level because certain types of bacteria flourish on damp bedding and release ammonia. This option is expensive, but the benefits will be better ground to walk on and fewer mosquitoes! None of them have all of these qualities. 1/2 Yard runs about $25 if you pick up. Some people, however, use sand as a flooring material. Quikrete is all-purpose sand and is more course than play sand. QUIKRETE Play Sand has no other ingredients added to it, so it presents no more danger than sand obtained from a beach or a river. I leave the old sand out for the year and let it get rinsed and dried repeatedly through the year by the elements. Chopped straw can be purchased at your local farm care store. I will point out that sand is not so great when it is soaking wet, I would not recommend it for runs exposed to rain and use it in dry areas only. A few articles have mentionedsmall chicks eating the sandand dying from an impacted crop. Still, I havent met too many fastidious hens in my time. They should not have been exposed to wild birds or other animals. I have no idea if this is the case, but its a concern. At best, chickens living in these conditions will be extremely uncomfortable. Its a range of different sizes. I visited the gravel company to see what they had available. What can we add to make this right? You can learn at your own pace and on your own time with this pre-recorded online course. I wouldnt want it much shallower than that in a large coop. I worry that the sand may have some pathogens in it from these wild animals and open range livestock. Theres not much in between. but yes! All-purpose Price: $1 - $5 Bag Weight (lbs. it has plenty of open air holes for air flow the floor is still wet and muddy. So, Im really not sure how they determined the grain size of their supply. This then prevents the chicken from being able to digest any foodthe crop just gets bigger and bigger, the more the chicken eats. The main reason using sand for chicken coops is so controversial is because people are all talking about different types of sandand some sand is terrible to use for chicken coops. Hot in summer, possible to burn the chickens feet, No bugs or worms for the birds to search for, Reasons to Use Sand in Your Chicken Coop and Run, Effectively disguising it, young chicks might ingest a lot of poop, leaving, Bantam Chickens: Breeds, Egg Laying, Size and Care Guide. I have a question as far as bedding for the coop. I mentioned above that if some of my chickens dont feel like going outside, they will dust bathe in the bedding. These sands may have high levels of bacteria, Coccidiosis, or who knows what else, that you dont want your chickens around. My first year raising chickens, I started with 28 hens and 2 roosters, and I felt terrible for them living on pine shavings. With sand in your coop, you dont have to worry about the increase in moisture leading to a drastic increase in ammonia. The Chicken Chick, however, has used sand in her run for years. Its now in the 8os but the sand is not drying out. Claire. It is more course than play sand. Some of you might even have your own straw or be able to purchase it from neighbors. We use the sand that comes in the long sand bags that you use in the winter because it is clean sand. It contains multiple sizes of particles, including small pebbles, etc. They had no idea what I was talking about. I also make DE dusting boxes inside the chicken houses. The sand in my coop is about 4-5 inches in depth. I have looked everywhere for commercial grade sand. 1962) and coarse (No. The pine shavings bedding on top was completely dry but some of the bedding near the floor was getting soaked. Every 1-2 weeks, I use a shovel with holes in it, like this shovel from amazon, to remove the poop on the floor in my large 10x10 coop. It may not display this or other websites correctly. (3) Not available 18.1kg Vinyl Concrete Patch Not available 22.7kg Quick Set Cement Not available 22.7kg Hydraulic Waterstop Cement Not available 4.5kg Hydraulic Waterstop Cement Not available Polymeric Jointing Sand - 22.7 kg Not available 296mL Red Liquid Cement Colouring Not available And, if your chickens sense danger at any time, they can stay hidden for quite a while without eating as long as their crops are full. The chickens looked much less miserable in the coop. There seem to be two camps in the sand issue either for or against, with few people taking the middle road of compromise. This stuff looks like what you would see on a riverbed. Quikrete Sand/Topping Mix 10 lb; Quikrete All-Purpose Sand 50 lb; GARBAGE CANS & BAGS And a word of cautioneven if you find sand with the names above, make sure you look at the sand before purchase. You dont want to scoop out the poopbecause sand bedding doesnt decompose with the poop, you dont want to just put sand in your coop and leave it there untouched forever. Im hoping to see Eggs in September. Available in: 50 lb. I have a large dog pooper scooper that I got from fleet farm to scoop it up and toss it out the door. And for the record, this is not just me claiming sand is cleanerits the scientific research. And despite the fact that chickens have wonderful dirt outside for dust bathing, when your girls get that itch to dust bathe, some of them dont want to have to go all the way outside. Im not worried about the pathogens harming my adult chickenstheyve already been exposed to these same pathogens while free rangingbut I dont know if the pathogen level is high enough to harm newly hatched chicks. bags 70 lb. Spreading straw, hay, or similar over the floors and in the nest boxes. This post contains affiliate links for my favorite products from Amazon. Check landscaping places also. It does not smell, tends to be clean, is healthy for chickens. It's perfect for what they need for dust I actually use this sand for my chicken coop and run. I have similar wet conditions and it can get frustrating. The exception to this is when people have small coops with only a few chickens, and they change the bedding weekly. I used play box sand for my chicks because it was safe for children. After a bout of coccidiosis ran through the coop wiping out my chicks and two adult birds, I got rid of the shavings completely. We want to get the girls soon. Can I use quikrete all purpose sand for chicken coop? Now that we have two large dogs my current flock have to be kept in a large pen with a coup/enclosed run in the middle. Where do u get the long tube bags of sand?? I have 24 birds and I dont have to scoop daily. Also for making concrete. Each bag weighs 70 pounds. Others have recommended 6 inches in depth. Nope, she had just filled her crop full for bedtime. All-purpose sand is considered 'ok.' The best sand is construction, bank run, or river sand. In my smaller coops, I use just a regular kitty litter scooper every day. I saw them at Lowes, but there could be different kinds, I wish I knew what one is ok! bags plain (BOM #108620) or dried (BOM #105755). Your friends chickens may not ever eat enough play sand for crop impaction, or perhaps the play sand they are eating is passing through their crops just fine. First, you need to make sure your flooring can hold the sand in the first place. You have no idea how gross coops can get. You want your sand to be as coarse as possible, while still being fine enough that most of it will sift through your kitty litter scooper. I do use PDZ as well as Diatomaceous Earth. Also, the chickens will use the sand for dust bathing which has been very effective in keeping parasites away and I dont find the play beach sand too dusty until it gets covered in bird dander. The type of sand I wanted was actually labeled as way less than 0.5 millimeters, but it seemed to me like most of the grains were way coarser than what was labeled. I lightly spray the sand with a water spray bottle too keep the dust from the bird dander down and use a square piece of 1/2 inch hardware cloth mesh threaded over a pitch fork (could use 1/4 inch mesh if you wanted it cleaner)..makes a perfect litter scooper. Additionally, in humans, long-term exposure to play sand can cause cancer. Ive been using childrens play beach sand inside the coop for several years and Ive never had another outbreak of coccidiosis since, in fact there has been no viral/bacterial/respitory illnesses or mites/lice/worms in my birds whatsoever. (we live in the 4 corners area) My question is this. The delivery cost me $90. (Do think twice before you use pine shavings, thoughsee my article, Pine shavings in the coop: The secret chicken killer?). Would this work? It is more course than play sand. Available in: 50 lb. I purchased my sand in the early fall and the day the gravel company delivered it, it rained. . All-purpose sand is considered ok. The best sand is construction, bank run, or river sand. My chickens seem to be much less interested in eating sand bedding than they are in eating organic bedding. No, theyll dust bathe in the coop bedding instead. Buy Now . The crop is like a little storage pouch. Silica and silicosis explained. Because of this, Ive always felt more comfortable brooding my chicks on fresh pine shavings. If you read my section below on yearly sand cleaning, youll see that I like to swap out my coop sand for a new pile of sand after a year or so. weight limit 50 pound of All-Purpose Sand Quikrete All-Purpose Sand 50 lb. As I mentioned above, when I used other types of bedding in my coops, my chickens always had poop on their feet. Claire. Can be used as a fine aggregate in Concrete Mix Can be used to provide traction on Snow and Ice. A few bags of sand would help to loosen things up, improve drainage, and bring the surface of the run up to ground level. Yet, others state it is an excellent medium for inhibiting bacteria such as E. coli and coccidiosis. Although there are some treatments for crop impaction if caught in time, you want to avoid this condition at all costs. For example, play sand (see my section on play sand above) isnt good for coops, and neither is any sand that has been exposed to high bacteria levels, such as from areas of standing water. While such soils would be a mixture of soil and sand, some plant growth stages do well with one or the other, or well-mixed small quantities of each. See my article here for more info and sources. I definitely have not seen this in my coops. The girls love to take dust baths. We have a lot of shavings. I ordered a large amount of sand so I could use it for several coops and runs, including some we hadnt even built yet. I looked up long tube sand and Home Depot has 60 lbs bags of it by Quikrete. They wanted me to give them the size in millimeters, but I had no clue. I use cat litter scoops duck taped to a pole and clean up is a breeze. So Im not convinced that it would be much more germ-free than regular straw if you look deep enough. Next, you need to make sure there are no wide gaps in the floor. 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