I am new here and to raising poultry (although I have dreamt of it for years!). We built an 8x10' mobile hoop coop for our 6 chicks and 6 guineas (they are 1 week old). During the day, the coop will be out and about on our 15 acre property. At night, I would like to have a "docking station" to park the coop safely. The floor of the "docking station" will be thick grass/weeds and I hope to maintain that throughout the warm months since they won't have much daytime to destroy the grass. In the winter, I plan to keep the coop stationary and to use deep litter. Eventually the guineas will free range.
SO my question is: Would it be safe to lay down hardware cloth on the floor of the "docking station" (with extra skirting outside the coop?) If we lay it down now, the grass/weeds would have time to grow up thickly through the HWC. Then in the winter it would be covered with deep litter. They would mostly be exposed to the hardware cloth at night when parked. But would that be enough or am I setting them up for foot injury? I appreciate your sage wisdom!
SO my question is: Would it be safe to lay down hardware cloth on the floor of the "docking station" (with extra skirting outside the coop?) If we lay it down now, the grass/weeds would have time to grow up thickly through the HWC. Then in the winter it would be covered with deep litter. They would mostly be exposed to the hardware cloth at night when parked. But would that be enough or am I setting them up for foot injury? I appreciate your sage wisdom!
