Flooding around chicken run - any ideas?

[jetchaos]

Hey,
Any ideas for this particular issue? I've got a chicken run that has a hardwood chip cover on the bottom, tarpaulin over the top of it, but it's on a concrete standing so unfortunately our wild rain the past couple of days has finally decided to start flooding. Usually, it will evaporate pretty quickly - but as the wind is not strong at the moment and the sun isn't out, it's not getting a chance!
Any ideas? I was thinking potentially more wood chips in the run to help raise them up, but I've just used my last bag and more will take a while to get here. I also saw something about using sand...would using sand around the outside help? Any ideas welcome!
(Excuse the mess - in the middle of the weekly clean!)

 

[woodworm]

Looks like the slab its sitting on is lower than the ground around it.

If that were mine I'd be bucketing out as much of the water as I could before adding anything else.

Longer term you need to do something regarding drainage though adding gutters to a water barrel or nearby drain would help take away much of the water. Personally I'd want to raise the ground level but I guess it depends how often this is an issue.

Maybe a photo from a little further away so we can see the full coop and what space you have to work with will help with suggestions.

 

[Gax000]

X2. As long as the coop is sitting lower than the surrounding area, you will always have flooding problems. Maybe adding a French drain to move the water anway from this area would help?

 

[Penpal]

Can you move the coop to higher ground?

 

[Kiki]

Hey,
Any ideas for this particular issue? I've got a chicken run that has a hardwood chip cover on the bottom, tarpaulin over the top of it, but it's on a concrete standing so unfortunately our wild rain the past couple of days has finally decided to start flooding. Usually, it will evaporate pretty quickly - but as the wind is not strong at the moment and the sun isn't out, it's not getting a chance!
Any ideas? I was thinking potentially more wood chips in the run to help raise them up, but I've just used my last bag and more will take a while to get here. I also saw something about using sand...would using sand around the outside help? Any ideas welcome!
(Excuse the mess - in the middle of the weekly clean!)

Do you have a shovel?

 

[jetchaos]

Thanks for the suggestions.
I realise that past me was a bit silly to put it there in the first place - we have a big rat issue where we live and I was too concerned about ensuring that they couldn't dig in to think about the drainage!
I can move it to higher ground, it's just a massive pain. It's situated inside a ruin, so I'd have to take the entire run apart to fit it back through the doorway, and then into another section of the ruin, as it's the only shelter we have.
I may also look at a French drain; I could probably hammer through one of the ruin walls to install a pipe and carry the water away. Again though, big job!
At the moment, we're looking for water pumps; and I'm using a bucket and a ramshackle arrangement of guttering to carry the water to our nearest ditch! I put together some rudimentary guttering on the run yesterday, connected to a water barrel, but this morning it was even worse on the ground. I think that we've had an unusual amount of rain though, so hopefully this won't be a consistent problem.

 

[KyCoop]

Ditches, dams, drains, roofs, gutters. Sometimes one of these will works sometimes it takes all 5.

 

[Penpal]

Don't use a pipe. Use a "tile". It's what farmers use in wet fields.

 

[paintedChix]

Don't use a pipe. Use a "tile". It's what farmers use in wet fields.

For those of us who don't know, more info?

 

[Penpal]

Tiling a field. This is done in fields that don't let go of water very well. In the spring water keeps the field too cold to plant, and may make it difficult to use heavy equipment.

It is a wide plastic pipe with little holes along one side. (I suppose they may be made with more holes). The holes are laid on the down side. This is so water seeps up from the bottom. If the holes were on the top soil would drop in. Tractor Supply probably has tile and they will show you how to use it. There is equipment to open the earth and drop the tile, but you probably wouldn't need it.