Using Sand In Your Chicken Coop

I loved using sand in my coop, but at least once I year, I had to dig out THE most foul (fowl?) smelling poo cement you have ever encountered. The top would stay pretty dry, but any liquid would settle down into the compacted sand below, and come spring, I had a disgusting, stinky, tough job ahead of me. Compounded by what I should do with all those slabs of compost sand. . . you can break some up and put it in the garden if you can stand the stink, but what about the rest? Gross. Will have to try the larger sand next time around; I did use the coarse stuff from a home center, which I guess was not coarse enough. I got a kitty litter type scooper on a long handle to sift out the poops - worked great!

Thank you, we live on a river and will definitely try this.

I use sand inside the chicken coop. We had a big pile of sand leftover from construction, so I used it inside the coop. The chickens are let out into a moveable fence run every day, so they aren't on the sand all the time. I scoop out the poo with a long-handled kitty litter scoop I purchased from Amazon. I have a big tub of sand inside the coop with a little food-grade DE mixed in it for the chickens. The quail have a small tub of the sand mixture in their pen inside my out-building as well. (They are not near the chickens.)

Good article. I have heard about sand not being a good choice to use in your coop for the reasons considering your chickens feet. Chickens need something soft to land on or they can have feet/leg issues in the future. Also that you can compare them walking on sand similar to a human being at the beach. Say you were to press your hand down in the sand, and then wrap your hand around a rod, similar to the chicken grabbing a perch, and it will hurt like hell. This can hurt the chickens feet. As I said this is all something I heard from a poultry specialist on a podcast I have heard in a podcast which I will share the link to. I can’t recall the exact episode. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chicken-whisperer/id330305249

great article! I too use sand in their coop where they sleep and lay. easy to keep clean daily. I have 5 chickens... this has been the easiest pen to take care of. I have had them one year. I built a 16 x 16 pen. the outer area has small pea gravel.

I haven’t even moved my pullets to a coop yet, so I’m super glad I got this information before setting everything up!!

Good article, thanks! We had a large pile of decomposing granite/coarse sand from some trenching we did, and after reading this article I decided to use it in the chicken coop. Seems to be working great so far (well, first 2 days), and now I'm working on a way to sift it. Using it in a brooder and sifting with a screen seems to be a good idea too, so the next time I have chicks I'm going to give it a try.

Excellent article!

Lots great tips and good advice. I have been kinda on the fence about sand but it is intriguing.
The trick is convincing my husband to switch over. I am tired of the shaving mess for sure.

Thank you for being very detailed about using river type sand as bedding for the chickens! It gave me an idea of what to use next if what i have just isn't cutting it for me.

What do you do with the sand when you are done with it? Does it go in the compost?

Excellent article! We have used sand in our coop and run since we got our chickens 4 years ago. Your article was correct in every way. We've heard thumbs down on sand from some so-called lady chicken expert and could not disagree more. It's been so easy to keep the coop and run clean everyday and as you say it looks so nice and NO smell!

Good points to consider before choosing a flooring material.

I liked that both positive and negatives were listed. I used sand with my guineas in the warmer months. It kept them cooler and they dust bathed in it, so it worked well.

A friend of mine does this with his turkeys... for us, it's too late and we are moving so eh, the new coops with have sand for sure!

This has all of the information and resources listed that I need to convert my coop to sand. I do not need to go anywhere else. Thank you!

I have actually read this particular article over and over. I would read it then go to the forums to see what people had to say about using sand and then come back. Needless to say, I have sand in my coop and thos article helped me with that decision.

well written and doesn't just tell the good points. Also talks about some of the negatives, comments have other cons too