Mud, Mud, and more Mud!!! HELP!?!?!?

[Bulldogma]

We are on a very flat part of property and there is no great drainage... but... with the use of plenty of hay and some pine chips too, we have somehow managed to avoid mud in the runs. Of course I don't have anywhere near the number of chickens you do, but I know this particular setup of breeding pens will house a limited number of chooks. I have found that by regularly adding more hay and now and then adding a sprinkling of wood chips, I have built a living floor-type surface that seems to wick the water away. We have successfully kept the red clay from coming up through it. If you already have access to older hay, use it! It breaks down and creates a nice, rich soil as it decomposes. Healthy soil on top of the clay is what you want to shoot for, IMHO.

I would say the first matter of business would be to make sure the area you build in is not an area that naturally has a river running through it in a hard rain. Next time it pours, go out with some stakes or rocks - something to mark areas and make note of which areas become rivers or pools and which areas the water naturally drains out of.

I would also say that slope is not a bad thing. You want to build breeding pens... not a swimming pool, and inclines drain better than flat surfaces.

Just a few of my thoughts as I thought them... LOL!

 

[ki4got]

We are on a very flat part of property and there is no great drainage... but... with the use of plenty of hay and some pine chips too, we have somehow managed to avoid mud in the runs. Of course I don't have anywhere near the number of chickens you do, but I know this particular setup of breeding pens will house a limited number of chooks. I have found that by regularly adding more hay and now and then adding a sprinkling of wood chips, I have built a living floor-type surface that seems to wick the water away. We have successfully kept the red clay from coming up through it. If you already have access to older hay, use it! It breaks down and creates a nice, rich soil as it decomposes. Healthy soil on top of the clay is what you want to shoot for, IMHO.

I would say the first matter of business would be to make sure the area you build in is not an area that naturally has a river running through it in a hard rain. Next time it pours, go out with some stakes or rocks - something to mark areas and make note of which areas become rivers or pools and which areas the water naturally drains out of.

I would also say that slope is not a bad thing. You want to build breeding pens... not a swimming pool, and inclines drain better than flat surfaces.

Just a few of my thoughts as I thought them... LOL!

the area's where my big hoop coop was... if you remember that one? uphill of the baby pens and downhill of the mfc pen. and the old satellite dish too. we're going to cut back some of the trees to make room. i'm thinking a short wall will help level it some, as it's only about a 3-4" drop from driveway towards the woods and maybe 18" drop from uphill to down, at the furthest back corner, less towards the driveway.

here's my big hoop coop i'm referring to, for those who haven't been here. LOL which is pretty much everyone EXCEPT Bulldogma, I think. LOL

to give an idea of slope, I added shavings to their mud, and it leveled off with the bottom of the right 2x4 and top of the far left 2x4 (closest to house).

the house is still there but will be relocated when I start working on the ground part.

this pic was when it was still fairly newly built, so it's seen better days now, but still quite usable. it'll just have a new home. currently the pen is down by the horse shed, growing grass inside that the horses are envious of. LOL

and yes, inclines drain better, but make building more difficult! and this area drains away fairly evenly, towards the woods. the driveway catches the majority of the runoff from other areas uphill. it's a muddy sloppy mess because of traffic (me, the birds, the horses), so i'm afraid that the pens would again become a muddy mess once birds move in and any remaining ground cover is stripped bare.

 

[ki4got]

ok enough editing that post. LOL. I think my idea of building up one side to level it a bit more will work well for me, and any heavily traveled areas (human foot travel) will end up with the paving stones, while the pens will have a deep mulch of hay/shavings to build on.

 

[Kernel Cluck]

Sand, sand, and more sand.

Ga Boy is right... sand, sand and more sand. I would avoid "organic things". They decompose.. stick with sand. Not sand box sand... coarse river sand. Its cheap and drains really well.

 

[ki4got]

and I've talked myself into doing a grassy area too. shouldn't be difficult if I raise the wire off the ground by 4" or so, all they can do is eat the parts growing thru.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: and as I've already learned, sinks quite nicely into the clay. we've lost tons of 1-2" gravel on the yard and around the house already... not to mention larger and smaller stuff, including coarse river sand. so unless I put something under it, it's just going to sink too.

the only place where the gravel has packed well enough is the driveway near the house, where we've already put probably 80-90 tons of gravel over the last 14 years (at 12-15 tons per delivery). and it's time to add more. again.

and that's not counting what's been put on the driveway only to be washed downstream during a popup thunderstorm. our drive is steep enough and gathers enough runoff that we've had flash flooding down it. the pipes under the drive that were supposed to divert runoff became full of dirt, gravel, clay, etc. in less than a year. (installed in October, clogged by August.)

i'm not saying sand CAN'T be done, but not without winning the lotto and having everything dug down to bedrock first. for that i'd sell the place and buy something easier to work with.

 

[liltigerlil]

In Maryland clay all over. This sounds like a great experiment for me. Just have to find out how much more I can spend after going over a bit on new coop. Just purchased rain barrel and drip waterer from local poultry supply on a trip to NC. I will have to call around to see what is available.

Anyone thought of laying old pallets down and filling up with sand, shavings, etc????

 

[Chemguy]

I can't comment on how to solve the mud problem by adding material, but I have dealt with building on a slope. If you do come to build on a slope, that might take care of the mud issue without your having to modify the soil.

On my property the only level ground is right where the house is located, and that meant that our coop and run needed to be built on a slope away from the house, or that we needed to level a new area away from the house. We have clay, too, and water will stand on it for a couple of days after a good rain. By building on a slope, everything drains away quickly and we have had no problem with mud. Plus, we didn't need to move lots of material.

There is a picture of our coop and (enclosed) run on my profile page. You'll see that the run does have a tiered roof. It was actually quite easy to do, and I am happy to share with you how we did it if you come to be interested. Of course, you might have other ideas for your pen design. Good luck!

 

[ki4got]

well, this is what I've got going so far... the only part missing from the 2 pens on the far end are doors on the houses, doors/wire on the fronts of the pens and some roofing. it's wired on top to keep critters out but not to keep rain out of the roosting area.


the end result will be a mirror image of what's up, sharing the back wall of the house sections and one more long open section at the far end for a grow-out pen... each breeding pen measures 4x8 on the base, stands close to 6.5' tall, maybe a bit more.

final footprint will be 16x20 with the capability of being anywhere from 8 to 10 individual pens. the 2 far end pens (one on each side, uphill/downhill) will have access doors to the extra sections, which will also be able to be open as one pen or divided into 2.

 

[LTygress]

I live in Georgia, and we have Red Clay here too. We put our chicken pen in a corner of the property against the wood line (trees grow over it, but it also lets sun in). But there is also a big problem with mud. ESPECIALLY this week and last week, where it seems to rain several inches every other day! I went back there two days ago, and my foot sunk about a good 3 inches!

Hay is what I used. The chickens have a sandbox in there, but when they toss it out, it disappears. And the bird poop on top of the sand will only help "sandwich" it in a little more with muck. But one square bale of hay covered the entire 17' by 21' area. Two square bales lifted the chickens (and myself) off of the mud enough to stop the muck from caking up on our feet. I'm thinking about adding more, depending on whether or not this rain continues like this!

Yeah it decomposes quickly, because it's organic, but it's cheap.


Although if I had enough money to prepare it ahead of time, I'd lay down concrete like I did for an old shed. I purposely had the concrete tilted towards one back corner, leaving a gap under the edge of the shed, so I could hose it off whenever I wanted. It's REALLY easy, just get some 2x6's for the form boards, make a big square roughly 1-foot larger than what you plan to set on it, kinda level it out with one corner sitting slightly lowerand pay some guy about $250 bucks to deliver a "yard" of concrete. One load easily filled up an 11x13 foot area for my shed.

When they deliver it, you'll have to use a "bull float" to smooth it out. For that, just grab one 2x4 and attach another 2x4 perpendicular to it to make a broom-like tool to "smooth" the top. Don't try shoving it around that way (just into corners), just drag the 2x4 "broom" across the top, and it will do the rest on it's own.

The area where I set that up was also kinda uneven. But on the low end (which was also the drainage end that I purposely made lower with the form boards), I let the cement mix bulge out of the bottom of the form boards to help provide additional support.


All of this was three years ago. The house is in foreclosure now, so I'm no longer living there, but the concrete is still there, in one piece. Since a shed (and chickens) aren't going to weigh very much, there is no need to worry about it cracking under the weight. Concrete foundations for houses have to be perfect, because of the weight of the roof, and the rest of the house. But that's not the case with chicken pens.