A regular, enclosed coop wont have that exposure to the sun inside and will actually be much cooler. Sand, on the other hand, well, youll most likely have to find it at your local gravel companysee more on this topic below, in my section, Where do you find sand for chicken coops? It appears to be working fine. To anyone thinking of getting one of those cute little coops. The second reason you dont want to use play sand, or any fine-grained sands, is because fine-grained sands are really dusty. Im in the process of moving my ladies into the coop from their current home and am planning on using approx 6-8inches of river bank sand for the coop+run bedding. Although sand may save you money in the long run, it may be expensive in the short run. This was so helpful! As a side note, I still refer to chicken litter as bedding, rather than litter, just because people dont really know what Im talking about otherwise. Many people rely on the deep bedding method to keep their coops a few degrees warmer in the winter. All-Purpose Sand Quikrete (421) Questions & Answers (237) Interested in purchasing a pallet, buy 56 bag Washed and graded coarse sand Id like a sand that they can easily dust themselves in, but I know not to get too fine of sand. I really enjoy your newsletter and look forward to receiving it. We have a lot of cedar trees that we use for firewood. Claire. Pine shavings have not been sitting fully exposed in the great outdoors. All-purpose sand is washed and coarse, making it clean and water-retaining. bag 50 lb. The yearly cleaning can be very labor intensive (more on this below). The dust from fine-grained sands may even eventually cause silicosis in your chickens. For example, an area of 8ft x 12ft covered to a depth of 6 inches would require approximately 2 tons of river sand. For the same reasons, sand coops have markedly fewer flies. You cant keep your coop dryas I mentioned above, some people said they had sand in their coop that somehow got wet and then froze in the cold weather. Still, I havent met too many fastidious hens in my time. Had my chickens for three years without any problems. I highly recommend you have extra sand, though, if possibleits cleaner in the long run. Would this work? Therefore, it is suitable for your coop bedding material. All-purpose sand may initially sound exactly like that: made for ALL purpose. Sand is being delivered tomorrow. Let me just say right off that even though sand is cleaner, you do still need to keep on top of it. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. The chooks can eat the grass and other planted goodies that poke through the hardware cloth without scratching up the roots. I still use wood shavings in the laying boxes. Having coarse grained particles, it can be used in chicken coops but cannot be perfect for dust bathing. They should be able to help you find the perfect sand. QUIKRETE Premium Play Sand (No. Dry sand will often do that, wet sand normally not. Conventional types of bedding, like pine shavings and straw, can be purchased from your local farm store. I have more on this topic in the section below, How to clean sand bedding in your chicken coop, but I do scoop out the poop every day in my small coop and once every 1-2 weeks in my large coop. Now adding more whenever the rock quarry opens for the season. Wish I knew this trick years ago . First, you need to make sure your flooring can hold the sand in the first place. Heres a good tip for you: purchase and move your sand into your coop when the weather is super dry. Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread. I put wood shavings mixed with DE in the nesting boxes. Perhaps buy a little extra sand to err on the side of caution. I usually use shaving for bedding and over the winter on the nice days I put hay outside for them to stand on out of the snow and they loved scratching through it and picking off bits of grain. I have no idea if this is the case, but its a concern. I use sand here in the Mohave dessert and I love it. Its particularly awful in the winter when theyre mostly confined to the coop. It saves me from having to get on my hands and knees to scoop the poop. Meets ASTM C 33 specifications Product Features: Washed, dried and sanitized Use for sandbox, garden, litter box, traction and weight sand Great as base mate . Pavers to stop the air flow and 6 sand is great, if you can mix with DE here and there for their dust bathing and mite control even better. I have seen some sands with these names that are too fine grained. Every time you see this, youll wish you had sand. I do use PDZ as well as Diatomaceous Earth. What can we do? One last thingif youre new to chickens, regardless of which bedding you choose, youll want to cover the bedding completely with paper towels for the first few days or even a week. Really, the cost can vary quite a bit depending on where you live, so be sure to see your local gravel company for an estimate. Heres another good trick to make sure you get the perfect size of sand. It didnt dry out until summer the next year. You can learn at your own pace and on your own time with this pre-recorded online course. NO! There seems to be a lot of mixed feelings when it comes to different flooring, but I dont want to use wood chips on the floor because its very wet in SC (a lot of rain plus constant humidity) and the whole pen continues to get very muddy. When I first began keeping chickens I used wood shavings or wood pellets inside the coop. All my girls and boys are happy and healthy, I will always use and recommend the right sand. I have looked everywhere for commercial grade sand. Once the hard work of laying the sand is done, maintenance is pretty standard. It contains multiple sizes of particles, including small pebbles, etc. And if you want to see how sand lines up against the two most common bedding types, straw and pine shavings, check out another of my very thoroughly researched articles, The best chicken coop bedding: Sand vs. straw vs. pine shavings.. Aspen shavings, hemp, or chopped straw may be other options. Chickens dont bedthey roost, preferably on wood of some kind. When a chicken eats something, it sits in her crop before going through the digestive process. When the entire area around the coop and run is always wet and muddy, it might be best to consider laying down some drainage tiles first. When the chickens come in from free ranging, they drag in the mud which also gets the nesting boxes and eggs filthy. Theyd get poop stuck to their feet all the time (even when the bedding was fresh), and they liked pecking at the bedding, so they ended up eating poop. Additionally, if you dont have an extra pile of sand to swap ini.e., you only have enough sand to fill your coop and no extrathen I definitely recommend the flamethrower step. No more ant & flies, no more stinky mess & a cleanup job in 5-7 minutes daily. Just dirt everywhere else. I have been using sand in my coop since we started having chickens, we got as chicks. Your sand, or any other type of bedding, should always be dry. Many folks who used sand and were generally unhappy with the results had used the wrong type of sand hence many complaints were too wet, frozen, cold, etc. These are not qualities you want in your bedding. Cheers! We use washed construction sand in our big coop and I LOVE it. However, I had to pay to get the sand delivered, and thats where it got expensive. . So Im not convinced that it would be much more germ-free than regular straw if you look deep enough. They didnt have anything that coarse. - The Happy Chicken Coop - All Rights Reserved. JavaScript is disabled. When I first started looking into whether or not I should use sand for my coop, I found these two opinions: Sand is the best bedding out there, and you are making a huge mistake if you use anything else for your chickens, Sand is the worst bedding out there, and you are a monster if you use it for your chickens. Although the sand is said to provide better drainage, it wont if you dont prepare the area well. I live in south Florida, all Ive got is sandy soil in my run. Chickens really prefer to live in clean bedding. The sand in my coop is about 4-5 inches in depth. My coop flooring is dirt, in a soggy/boggy type area with lots of ventilation provided by the chicken wire used for the surrounding wall + the roof is completely covered with a heavy duty tarp to keep the rain from getting in. But for the rest of us, we want to be able to leave bedding in for longer than a week at a time, especially if we have a large coop. If you are thinking about adding sand to your coop out of curiosity, perhaps try putting it in a section of the coop and leaving the rest as your current bedding. Unlike organic bedding materials, sand is not flammable. It contains multiple sizes of particles, including small pebbles, etc. This is probably the stuff that can freeze solid in winter, cook the chickens feet in summer, and has minimal insulation properties. I like that there are less bugs for the chickens to eat so they have less risk of worms.There is no offensive odour or flies, and the girls can use the grit, dig and bath in the sand. We will be getting our pullets soon. It is ideal for coops in the summertime as long as your coop is enclosed (i.e., four walls and a roof). But this is a coop maintenance problem more than a sand problem. I also was not aware, until recently, that pine shavings are toxic for chickens - more information on that in my article, Pine shavings in the coop: The secret chicken killer? Sand is the cleanest type of bedding out there, simply because it doesnt degrade. You will need to remove all the sand from your coop and use the flamethrower to thoroughly flush your sand. I use about 10 bags of sand and all the old goes in my garden. The hens did fine, my big Bielfelder roo got a little bit of frostbite on his comb and wattles. Also, the coarse grains cannot offer the much required grit that other types of sand have. If not, could I mix it with dirt to make it ok? For anywhere from $10-$20 you can get an entire truckload of sand from a quarry. I definitely have not seen this in my coops. With the deep bedding method, your bedding releases a little bit of heat as it decomposes. It has also been sifted so that it's moderately coarse. Another issue is that fresh poop would adhere to the sand. So the same reason kids are able to use wet play sand to mold and build things like sandcastles is the same reason chickens are at an increased risk for crop impaction. Forested and richly-vegetated areas are no strangers to rivers and creeks, and, therefore, to sand. Fine-grained play sand or beach sand do not make good bedding as these may cause major health problems for chickens. Its a one-time deal. Looking to get our first chicks in a couple of weeks. I have 24 birds and I dont have to scoop daily. I will NEVER expose any of my chickens to pine shavings again. 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. This year, I plan to cover one of my runs completely and try sand in it. 5.7 lb Coarse Sand Stone When to Use Sand for Gardening Most plants require well-drained soils in various stages of their growth. on top of the pavers i was thinking 6 of sand. Therefore, it is suitable for your coop bedding material. I purchased my sand in the early fall and the day the gravel company delivered it, it rained. Chooks can use it as grit. We will move it every week but I decided for in the coop to use sand. So, Im really not sure how they determined the grain size of their supply. I live in the Willamette Valley (Oregon) which has a moderate temperature throughout the year (so coop insulation is not an issue), but very wet, moist, and muddy. And for the record, this is not just me claiming sand is cleanerits the scientific research. All-purpose sand is considered ok. The best sand is construction, bank run, or river sand. Use straw, hay, or something similar to cover the flooring and nest boxes. An important point here is that even if you have another type of bedding, like pine shavings or straw, if the bedding is getting wet, your chickens are going to really suffer. Thanks, Your email address will not be published. Ill first test that the heating plate doesnt make the sand too hot, and if it doesnt, Ill use the flamethrower on the sand to kill any pathogens. Building Materials Concrete, Cement & Masonry Concrete Mix & Aggregates Concrete Aggregates Customer Reviews for Quikrete 50 lb. Sand in the coop is also great for summer dust bathing because, despite the hot weather outside, the coop sand is relatively cool. QUIKRETE Commercial grade sands are narrowly graded clean dry silica sands. That could be heavy, and your floor could break down. People get used to it, which is why you dont hear many people talking about this, but when you first get started with chickens, you really have the yuck factor when it comes to the bedding. Its now in the 8os but the sand is not drying out. Just because a bedding material is natural, though, doesnt mean its necessarily better than something more artificial, but I always find its a good place to start when thinking about whats good for your chickens. Because a sandy coop is such a cleaner coop, especially if youre scooping out poop daily or at least weekly, sand bedding contains lower bacteria counts.Chickens in a sand coop should have less exposure to other pathogens, like Coccidiosis. My coop never smells like chicken poop, my chickens feet and eggs are cleaner. When hurricane Irma came along and flooded the flooring, I was left with a heavy stinking mess. It will depend on where you live, how readily available it is, and how far it has to be delivered (if you need it delivered). The pro folks seem to enjoy the cleanliness of the sand-type run. Does anyone know if this is a good idea? Is construction sand the same as paver sand? 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