Heavy clay under topsoil, what to use in the run?

[Midnight Maran Momma]

Living in our area of SE Virginia, there's a lot of heavy clay under the top 10-12" of soil. I was going to use sand in our run, as we've got a lot of high humidity, and I'd like to avoid mold in the run. HOWEVER, sand + heavy clay soil = horribly dry, hard dirt, which tends to repel worms & bugs for the chickens, not to mention its miserable in the hot summers.
Pine pellets were my next choice, but they can mold. Pine shavings would get moldy And stinky. Hemp is too expensive.
Any creative suggestions?
Planning on mixing pine pellets and shavings in the coop for warmth (and hopefully less stink) through our first winter with chickens.
The coop is 8' x 4', with 6 medium sized chickens, and an 8' x 12' run covered with 1/4" squares hardware cloth and a shade sail cover.

 

[rosemarythyme]

If you have room for a pile of wood chips, that would be the ideal base for a deep litter set up.

 

[RoyalChick]

Living in our area of SE Virginia, there's a lot of heavy clay under the top 10-12" of soil. I was going to use sand in our run, as we've got a lot of high humidity, and I'd like to avoid mold in the run. HOWEVER, sand + heavy clay soil = horribly dry, hard dirt, which tends to repel worms & bugs for the chickens, not to mention its miserable in the hot summers.
Pine pellets were my next choice, but they can mold. Pine shavings would get moldy And stinky. Hemp is too expensive.
Any creative suggestions?
Planning on mixing pine pellets and shavings in the coop for warmth (and hopefully less stink) through our first winter with chickens.
The coop is 8' x 4', with 6 medium sized chickens, and an 8' x 12' run covered with 1/4" squares hardware cloth and a shade sail cover.

Are you doing deep litter in the coop? And is the run covered or open?
I am on heavy red clay and do deep litter in the coop. I use leaves, pine shavings, stall pellets, shredded paper, and pine straw. The pine straw is lovely but I only use what I can find in the yard.
It gets humid here but I have never had a mold issue. Stall pellets are particularly good at absorbing moisture.
In the covered run I don’t do anything except from time to time I give them a big heap of leaves to play in.
They move bedding from the coop to the covered run.
Then in the open air run (electric fence only) I don’t do anything. When it gets very dry they dust bathe in the clay so I have clay dust everywhere.
The above works fine for me. I do however have a lot of space for my chickens which probably is a factor.